In the Boardroom of Nottingham Forest, while you walk into the right, there are two European cups in a glass cupboard. They continue to define a football club and indeed a moment in time in English sports history.
There are also other Dendens. The boots of John McGovern and a copy of the contract of the former Boskapitein. Photos of the title -winning team of Brian Clough. But there is no FA cup. On the city it is one hole in the CV of the modern forest.
They last won it in 1959. The forest of Clough Flunkte their only chance by losing the 1991 final to Spurs. Clough, who died in 2004, thought it was so deep that he paid for a second medal to be thrown into gold. So this week here in Nottingham they have not hidden themselves for the new chance that Sunday's semi -final against Manchester City presented.
Forest wears their self -respect just as proud as they do the two stars on their shirts. One for each of the European cups. Football is cyclical and sometimes it takes a long time before the wheel turns. This is a time to be confiscated and that is why on Thursday morning on the parking garage of the stadium, employees fold socks and shirts and shorts and shorts were found and they load them in vans. A thousand forests delivered to 1,000 school children.
During the Easter period there were record numbers that visited the museum of the city grounds. In a few weeks, meanwhile, the public can keep an eye on plans for the regeneration of the stadium.
In the coming weeks, however, it is all about football. A shot on the FA Cup – the only trophy that Clough never won – and an attempt to mock the qualification for the Champions League, the competition that defined him.
Forest has a chance of the moon, a chance to follow in the footsteps of giants. And just after 1.30 pm on Friday, the tall Portuguese man walked without her and light in his eyes – the manager who will wear the hope and dreams of his club to Wembley and hopefully in Europe – and sat down.
This is not the Nuno Espirito Santo who had an in -depth impact at Wolves, but blinked like a kitten every time a flashbulb appeared. This is not the Nuno that has passed by Tottenham as a spirit.
No, this is Nuno in Technicolor, a coach who has found the life he wants to live and apparently the team he wants to coach.
From his office with glass walls on the first floor of the modest training building of Forest, a mile or so on the road of the stadium, Nuno has supervised the resurrection of a large football club without breaking the pass.
“He is almost zen-like in his calmness,” an employee told Mail Sport. “I have never seen anyone like him in football.”
That does not mean that Nuno does not know what it means next month for his club and his city. He knows what this is.
“We feel it,” he said. 'There are already coaches outside. We are 48 hours away and people are already preparing for Wembley.
'It is an honor to be in this club and see all the performances before they are written around the stadium. And at the same time dream and think when we can repeat it.
'To place something in the stadium that we have reached, would be huge. We must be honored to be in forest. Two stars behind us on these seats I sit on. It's prestigious. '
Nuno is not an enthusiastic public talker. He says a lot with his eyes and his vague smiles and he is more generous. In Forest he is popular because he is very good at what he does and leaves others behind to do their bit. He has no micro management.
This week, after a huge Premier League victory in Tottenham, was about managing the mood. For example, he softly asked for a delay in the media obligations of players, hoping instead that the eyes are only trained on Sunday's game.
That is why it was Ryan Yates and Neco Williams who accompanied those shirts in schools on Thursday. Yates can be club captain. He may be locally. But he and Williams are also suspended and cannot play this weekend.
“All our players will go with us for this game,” Nuno added. “Some will be in the stands. But it is important that they are with us. '
Qualification for next season's Champions League would be demonstrably more important for Forest and their ambitious owner Evangelos Marinakis than a FA Cup triumph.
A place at the top table in Europe would bring the club about £ 90 million before a summer for which a team reinforcement and the required financial muscle is needed to keep the interest in the best players in Nuno.
But football is a game of emotion and the disappointment of For's FA Cup loss of 1991 has ended mostly bald years for 34. It is a final recording with colorful memories.
Clough and Tottenham manager Terry Venables led their teams out of hand. Paul Gascoigne was taken away. Forest led but eventually lost in extra time after Clough decided not to address his players before the added period.
“Winning that trophy was all because we knew what it meant for Cloughie,” former forest goalkeeper Mark Crossley told Mail Sport. 'If it was a choice between the Champions League and winning the cup this time, I would last the cup all day.
'That final has still stayed with us a bit. The club earns that trophy in his cabinet. It is all I wanted as a child and it is the only thing people always ask me about. They don't ask me what it was like to play against Bayern Munich in the UEFA Cup. They ask me about Wembley. '
Crossley – who has stored a Gary Left fine in that final – will be at Sunday's game. He will be on stage in advance in the nearby Box Park.
“I'll drink something and lead the singing,” he said. 'However, I am a bit worried. The team has come this season so far. They just have to see it over the line now. '
Clough was also worried in 1991. While the Nuno team has been walking a bit lately – the victory of the Spurs followed the defeats of Aston Villa and Everton – Clough had emphasized that the shape of his team had been a bit too good.
He did not hold Venables's hand that day in Wembley out of brutality, but because he was nervous. During the break he tapped his assistant Alan Hill on the knee and confessed that he feared the worst.
Clough wanted that trophy more serious than many might appreciate. “I waited 40 years to get there,” he wrote later. In all likelihood, he would have retired.
In De Boswinkel this week they sold a green sweatshirt – Clough was famous for a nine major awards on the front. On the next Rail is a T-shirt in honor of the current forest fever Nikola Milenkovic-'the Servinator '.
Forest is a club in which the past and the present always seem to be side by side. A newspaper shop on Trent Bridge sells competition programs from last week and also from the Clough era and everyone in between. With that in mind it is tempting to wonder what Clough would have made of the 24th permanent manager to be in the Forest Dugout since he stepped in 1993.
“The Gaffer would like Nuno,” Forest's European Cup winner Garry Birtles told Mail Sport. 'Our teams and this team share qualities. Unity and togetherness for example. That costs a lot of work and cleverness.
'When I see this team, I see their joy to win and that makes me emotional, because that is what we had. It is important. What the Gaffer did was about simplicity. Good players in their right pays. Good recruitment. I see that now. '
Clough coveted famous possession of a football above everything else. Crossley tells a story about his manager who places a ball on a towel in the middle of the Wembley dressing room in 1991 and tells his players to take care of it.
Nuno does it differently. His forest team has made winning competitions on the back of low ownership an art form. “It is the joy of having the ball versus the joy to compete well,” he said.
Birtles – which will also be in the game – sees the combination between eras as weak. “We remember what we did and how we played, even if others don't always always,” he said. 'Hamburg hit us in the European Cup final of 1980. We never saw the ball and won 1-0.
'Talk about those days with Graeme Souness and Phil Thompson. Liverpool was the best team in Europe, but could never beat us, even though they always had the ball. We had a great keeper and two fantastic central halves. Do you see the similarities with this team? I do. “
In Nottingham this week the Great Trekking De Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean Farewell Tour was. 'Twenty -five years of making memories' was the marketing that was sold outside the Motorpoint Arena prior to Thursday's matinee.
At the football club it has been a while since they screamed about everything. Even their return to the Premier League three years ago for the first time since 1999 was accompanied by Graan on what seemed to be a random transfer policy.
This time a year ago, Forest made the headlines because he was moored four points after violating the financial guidelines of the Premier League and then placed an explosive tweet about Var Official Stuart Attwell after a defeat at Everton.
It is amazing that seven of the team who defeated Spurs on Monday played that day in Goodison Park. That is a testimony to Nuno's work at a club that wants to redesign the sustainability at the top of our game. Forest has gone skillfully and quickly out of darkness. It is not necessary to sell players this summer and there are reasons to be optimistic on Sundays.
The Nuno team has already defeated Manchester City this season and has the best record on the road in the Premier League outside Champions-Elect Liverpool. Of the 25 times they took the lead against opposition of top flight, they have only lost twice.
So the first goal feels important and forest fans just have to hope that they can overcome a number of fairly overwhelming warnings on the railways to be there to see it. Those who are not lucky to have a ticket – Forest sold their 35,000 allocation immediately – gather to look at large screens in places such as the Trent Navigation Inn that is between the city land and the Meadow Lane of Notts County.
On the wall opposite is a beautiful wall painting by Clough and the large Notts figurehead Jimmy Sirrel, a memory that this beautiful triangle of sporty real estate does not have one football club, but two.
They also played County Championship Cricket on Trent Bridge on Friday. Summer is on the road. But for Nuno and his forest team, the business end here and the footprints they try to follow are considerable.
An editors in the OH Mist who rolled in Fanzine this week suggested: “We've never had it so well.” They have that of course. But because of goodness it was a while ago.