It is now precisely 2,530 days since Nottingham Forest last lost to Derby County.
We know this thanks to the ‘Days Since Derby Beat Forest’ account on X, which keeps everyone updated on how long has passed since Derby beat Forest 2-0 in October 2017.
It is the epitome of lighthearted football banter; the kind of thing one side will relish and the other will dismiss.
Last month, the counter reached 2,500 days and it is not hard to envisage it reaching 3,000.
It would be an impressive feat if Derby manager Paul Warne was to inspire another promotion push over the coming months, after making the step up from League One to the Championship last season. While from a Forest point of view, it would be viewed as a huge disappointment if, under Nuno Espirito Santo, they found themselves in another Premier League relegation battle next spring.
So for now, Forest remain unbeaten in 10 games against their oldest rivals and retain the Brian Clough Trophy — held by the club who last won the East Midlands derby and named for the manager who led them both to the title in the 1970s — after a 2-1 victory in January 2022 (pictured above).
Martin Peach, the man behind ‘Days Since Derby Beat Forest’ and a lifelong Forest fan, explains the rivalry: “I grew up in the ‘borderlands’ where, for the most part, Derby and Forest fans live and work harmoniously together, but the p***-taking and oneupmanship in the schools, pubs and workplaces is vicious.
“We both give as good as we get, but mostly stay mates and a sense of humour is essential for maintaining this delicate balance. Me and a mate set it up about five years ago. It was originally called ‘Days Since Derby Scored Against Forest’, as we’d gone four or five games without conceding.
“Derby had been dominant over Forest for years, so it was a small bit of bragging rights which, although only a bit of fun, I knew would wind them up. When Chris Martin scored a 97th-minute equaliser in the first Pride Park lockdown game (July 2020), the record was over.
“Rather than packing it in, I changed it to ‘Days Since Derby Beat Forest’. Here we are now four years later.”
— Days Since Derby Beat Forest (@SinceDerby) September 12, 2024
While Forest fans among the account’s 3,000-plus followers will take pleasure from the regular updates, to some it feels a shame that the pause button has been pressed on the fixture.
Regular games against Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal and Tottenham underline the vast progress Forest have made since Steve Cooper transformed them from relegation strugglers into Championship play-off winners three seasons ago, but it feels as though there is a gap in the fixture list.
Liverpool-Everton, Arsenal-Spurs and Sunderland–Newcastle are historically regarded as the biggest derby days in England, but those who have experienced the East Midlands version know it inspires the same passion, emotion and, at times, hatred.
The Athletic looks at one of English football’s less fashionable, but no less fierce, derbies…
“I remember them booing me for the whole game,” says Robert Earnshaw, a striker who joined Forest from Derby for £2.65million ($3.5m at the current exchange rate) in summer 2008 and found himself getting a less-than-warm welcome back at Pride Park in January 2011.
“I was somebody who would always try to visualise how the game was going to go. I actually visualised me scoring the winner. It was strange to see it become real. I felt as though I was seeing it go in, in slow motion.”
In reality, it was over in seconds. Nathan Tyson’s cross from wide on the left is headed back towards the edge of the D by Paul Anderson and Earnshaw arrives to lash a first-time shot low into the corner.
“I was happy with the finish,” says Earnshaw. “What I really enjoyed was the deafening silence from the home fans, me doing the somersault and then standing in front of the travelling fans. I took the boos. Then they had to take it when I scored the winner. It was the perfect script. It was one of my favourite moments.
“The celebration felt like it went on for five minutes. Forest fans, to this day, bring up how much they loved it. I just stood there and conducted the away fans, like an orchestra conductor. I took the yellow card and carried on for as long as I dared. I loved it.
“It was the first time we had won at Pride Park (since Derby moved there from the Baseball Ground in 1997). It always had to be me scoring the goal, didn’t it?”
Earnshaw had spent only one season at Derby, one when they finished with an unwanted record, having collected only 11 Premier League points. Forest, at the same time, were edging their way to promotion from League One, England’s third tier.
“I was asking myself, ‘Am I brave enough to make that move?’. I did get a lot of stick for it, from Derby fans,” says Earnshaw. “I did get an idea that it might happen before the end of the season. Colin Calderwood (Forest’s manager at the time) had been at the Derby training ground. I knew from my agent that there was interest from Forest.
“The Derby fans were telling me that it would be out of order to join Forest, but I just thought about what the best step was for me. Sheffield United and Southampton were interested, but I made my mind up when I went to the City Ground and it felt like the right place.”
Earnshaw scored only once for Derby. Of the 35 league goals he got for Forest, in 72 starts and 26 substitute appearances, few will be more fondly remembered than the ones against Derby. Forest had also hammered them 5-2 at home in the reverse fixture a month earlier. Earnshaw scored twice in that match. It was their first double over them in 21 years.
“There was a mysterious fog that seemed to fill the stadium. It was eerie,” says Earnshaw. “The current Forest players are missing out by not having that fixture now. You want to play against the big teams in the Premier League, but there will also be really something special about Forest versus Derby.”
As well as Earnshaw’s trademark flips, the memorable moments in these games are too long to list.
In the modern era, there has been the 5-0 Derby win at Pride Park in March 2014, which was the catalyst for the end of Billy Davies’ second spell as Forest manager. There was the bizarre melee in January 2010 when Davies accused his opposite number — and former Forest player — Nigel Clough of kneeing him in the leg. We have seen Tyson waving a flag in front of the away end and Derby’s Robbie Savage twirling a scarf above his head.
Since the sides first met in October 1892 (Forest beat Derby 3-2 away), there have been 43 Forest wins, 37 Derby victories and 30 draws.
Between 2003 and 2009, Derby went eight games unbeaten in the fixture, but that came to a spectacular end at the City Ground early in 2009-10 when Forest triumphed 3-2 with goals from Radi Majewski, Dexter Blackstock and Tyson — who celebrated making it 3-0 before half-time by parading that corner flag.
“The things that stand out in the memory are not scoring goals,” says Blackstock. “There was the Tyson flag-waving incident. It wasn’t like him to behave like that, but I really think he meant to wind them up with it.
“I was right there in the middle of it all, fighting, in the aftermath. He was lucky because the away fans were trying to get onto the pitch to get him. That could have got even more messy.
“I scored (Forest’s second), but the flag-waving is something that I will always remember more. I also think of the melee when Clough and Billy clashed. Billy was furious. And I remember the red card. It wasn’t a red card.” Blackstock is referring to the controversial sending-off he suffered in a 1-0 defeat to Derby in September 2012, when Bobby Madley dismissed him following an innocuous aerial challenge with Richard Keogh.
“The build-up to those games is just different. People speak to you differently when they see you out and about,” says Blackstock. “They will tell you straight: ‘You have to win’. The stadium fills up before the warm-ups are finished, the atmosphere is just different. The current crop of players are definitely missing out not having the fixture. It is something you don’t understand until you experience it.
“There is a real, genuine hatred there. Brian Clough and his history with both clubs brings a bit of something extra, doesn’t it? It is a fixture that just provides memorable moments.”
They may no longer be in the same division, but there are still numerous links between clubs whose home grounds are roughly a 30-minute drive from each other.
Ben Osborn’s stoppage-time winner at Pride Park in January 2015 was one of the most memorable moments of Forest playing legend Stuart Pearce’s brief six-month tenure as their manager, because of his impassioned celebrations on the touchline. Forest academy graduate Osborn grew up a Derby fan and joined his boyhood club from Sheffield United this summer.
Paul Anderson, a long-serving Forest winger, is now a coach in Derby’s academy. Jake Buxton, a former Derby player who is also now part of their coaching staff, supported Forest as a youngster.
Forest’s recent appointment of Adam Robinson, hired away from Derby, as head of academy performance is another sign of how the old rivalry has swung in their favour. Robinson had 15 years at Derby and helped bring through the likes of Louie Sibley, Max Bird and Eiran Cashin.
Danny Higginbotham is another player who spent time at both clubs. He made 98 appearances for Derby between 2000 and 2003, which is vastly more than his six for Forest while on loan from Stoke City in 2012.
Higginbotham played in one East Midlands derby, for Derby — a goalless draw at Pride Park in October 2002, months after they had been relegated from the top flight.
“It was the first time in three years that the two sides played each other,” says Higginbotham. “As a player, you always made sure that you tried to understand it; that the first thought in your mind was always how much it means to the fans.
“You can feel it around the city. In the stadium, it is in the air. Every single person there has a reason why they want you to win. It might be history, it might be nostalgia. Whenever you play in a derby, you have to understand how fortunate you are. You are representing people in a moment that is so, so important to them.”
Higginbotham does have one regret from his short time at Forest a decade later.
“The East Midlands derby was meant to be my first game when I signed (in February 2012),” says Higginbotham. “It had been a sad period because (Forest owner) Nigel Doughty had passed away. The game was called off for bad weather. (He wasn’t in the matchday squad for the rearranged fixture a few weeks later.)
“If I had played for Forest and we had won, would I have celebrated? Too right I would. That is not said with any disrespect to Derby. That is me just standing up for the club that I was playing for and for the fans who love the club. I would have enjoyed every minute.
“I developed a really soft spot for Forest. Walking into the City Ground, you instantly feel, ‘This is a proper club’. I would love to play in one of those games again. It is a special fixture.”
For now, Days Since Derby Beat Forest will continue to update.
“I honestly thought it would last only a year or so, but it currently feels like it’s going to go on forever. Every now and then, I do a poll to see if the joke has worn thin. The results are always unanimous — carry on!,” says Peach.
“The rivalry has not been as intense since we’ve been in different divisions, but I still get a thrill when I hear they have lost and I’m sure the feeling is mutual.
“I don’t feel sorry for them in the slightest. They have just had one of the greatest seasons in their history by finishing second in the third division. Let them enjoy it, I say.”
Additional reporting: Daniel Taylor
(Top photo: Tony Marshall via Getty Images)
