Nottingham Forest’s badge: A competition, tattoos and hope
What is a badge in any case? It’s a complicated question to answer.
Perhaps your football club’s most ubiquitous symbol is a storied, heraldic design harking back to the local coat of arms or a sleek, modern design dreamt up to look effortlessly slick emblazoned on modern sportswear.
But why is there a tree? Or a bee? Or a devil?
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This week, The Athletic is breaking down the details hiding in plain sight and explaining what makes your club badge.
There are some things that are sacrosanct in Nottingham.
It is Nottingham Forest and Notts County, with no permissible variation between the two.
There are also a small number of things in the city that are — sometimes in more than one sense — set in stone and would cause uproar if they were ever changed in a significant way.
The pair of lions outside the council house, the Robin Hood statue, Trent Bridge, cobs, mushy peas and mint sauce, greeting people with a cheery ‘ey-up me duck’, the Olde Trip to Jerusalem, the Major Oak and the forest that surrounds it, a massive goose that appears on a roundabout for a few weeks every year, and the castle that is not quite a castle but has had a watching brief looming over the city for centuries.
You can now include the Brian Clough statue on that list.
And you can very definitely include the badge that arrived at Forest shortly before the legendary manager.
If you head to almost any place on the globe, they will recognise that familiar curly tree, sat on top of three wavy lines. And the word FOReST, complete with a lower-case ‘e’.
“I’ve been in some pretty far-flung corners of the world and people always recognise the badge,” says Arsher Ali, Nottingham-born Forest fan and actor. “You can fudge drawing it and people would still know it. Also, it works in any colour: red, white, blue and even orange. Not many clubs can boast that, never mind the two stars.”
Beyond briefly turning it gold to mark the club’s 150th anniversary and also adding a few words in tribute to the 30th anniversary of back-to-back successes in Europe in 1979 and 1980 — which put the club and city on the map and inspired those stars — nobody has ever been foolish enough to tinker with the design.
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“Woe betide anyone who tries to change the badge,” says Ali. “Not even Vincent Tan (the Cardiff owner who decided that the Bluebirds would be better off playing in red) would have the cojones to mess with it. I think creative agencies in London can sleep well at night knowing they don’t have to redesign such biblical work. Leave well alone.”
What makes the badge intriguing is its history. Prior to 1973, the club often played without a badge on their shirt at all. When they did wear a badge it was initially a primitive crest featuring Robin Hood — sometimes known as the Jolly Forester. Around 1957, they adapted a version of the Nottingham coat of arms.
Evolution of Nottingham Forest’s badge throughout history (overview of changes in comments) from nffc
When it was decided that a change was required, the club ran a competition in conjunction with the Nottingham Evening Post. There were just over 850 entries, some from as far away as Australia. The paper’s Forman Street offices were littered with pictures of Robin Hood, castles and groups of trees.
But one submission, from a young Nottingham man called David Lewis, stood out and was chosen.
“I wanted to retain some of the history of what had gone before,” Lewis recently told The Athletic. “The tree had been part of the previous crest, from the Nottingham coat of arms, and I wanted to retain it. Then I wanted to take into account the fact that the City Ground was on the banks of the River Trent.”
Matt Jones, who is part of the Forza Garibaldi group that produce spectacular pre-match displays at the City Ground, shared with The Athletic his enthusiasm for Lewis’s design.
“It is one of the most iconic badges in football — and it came about because somebody entered a competition,” says Jones. “I have always felt that Nottingham is a city with a kind of misunderstood genius vibe about it. People like Ned Ludd, DH Lawrence, Alan Sillitoe. When people call you a Luddite, it is seen as an insult. But what they were looking to stand up for was workers’ rights.
“You can draw a line from that spirit to the Forest logo. There is a simplicity there. There is a tendency in Nottingham for us to be pessimistic; to lack optimism sometimes. But the genesis of the badge encompasses the spirit of the city. We got ourselves an iconic badge by giving somebody a £25 prize.
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“Now it is part of the culture. It does not shout or scream. It encapsulates the mood in the city where we are proud of our past, without shouting from the rooftops about it.”
One Forest fan in Colchester had the Forest badge bricked into his driveway.
In 2017, after the club had narrowly avoided relegation, the nearby Pavilion Road Tattoo parlour had to work overtime when dozens of fans took them up on their offer to ink the Forest badge for just £20.
Only this week, Forest supporter Stuart Beeston got a Forest badge tattoo to celebrate promotion. At the same time, his partner Sarah got one too (both pictured below).
“I started going to Forest in 1983, so I missed out on the European years,” says Stuart, 54. “When we were relegated last time, I said that if we ever got back to the Premier League, I would get the badge on my leg. When you are on holiday, you can see a Forest shirt from miles away, just because the badge is so distinctive. If the design was ever changed, there would be uproar.
“We would have had it done before, but we could not get an appointment. The tattoo artist said he had done no end of Forest badges since we had gone up. He said there were loads of people waiting for them. The design means so much to so many people.
“If we ever win the European Cup again, we would have to have a third star added to it… it’s unlikely, but it is a problem I would like to have.”
For now, the Forest badge is back on the big stage, with Steve Cooper having led them to promotion. Actor Ali could not be happier.
“The Forest badge means hope. It means despair. It means joy. Above all it means home. I don’t live in Nottingham anymore but I still love and miss the city,” says Ali. “This season I hope the badge means: ‘Standing unshaken in choppy waters, looking at the stars’.
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“It’s unmistakable. Iconic. Economical. A moment of pure inspiration. Apart from cramming in a goose, a castle, Robin Hood or a bit of lace in there, it nailed Nottingham.”
(Top image: designed by Samuel Richardson)
