May 30 – Nottingham Forest ended their 23-year wait for a return to the top flight of the English football with a narrow 1-0 win over Huddersfield Town in the Championship play-off final on Sunday in the so-called richest individual match in the world game, worth an estimated £170 million.
The decisive goal came after 43 minutes and the final whistle sparked bedlam among the Forest faithful at Wembley stadium after a generation-long exile from the Premier League.
The two-time European Cup winners join automatically promoted Fulham and Bournemouth in the top flight. By contrast, Huddersfield, who finished the regular season in third place – one spot ahead of Forest – were left distraught after having two legitimate penalty appeals turned down.
One of the most iconic names in English football, having won back-to-back European Cups in 1979 and ’80, Forest fell on hard times, even at one stage becoming the first ever European Cup-winning club to fall into the third tier of a domestic league.
The club were at the bottom of the Championship with six defeats and a draw from first seven games when Steve Cooper took charge in September and transformed their fortunes. He was the 14th manager appointed in 10 years and somehow succeeded where all his predecessors had failed.
“We are a big football club that’s full of history and tradition,” Cooper said. “I’ve always said ‘let’s try to create a next positive chapter’ and we have managed to do that. They deserve to be back in the Premier League where they belong.”
Huddersfield had been relegated from the Premier League in 2019 after two seasons in the top division and had themselves undergone something of a transformation after finishing 18th and 20th in the previous two Championship campaigns.
But they were unable to produce a fairytale ending when it mattered most. It was a double blow for the town. On Saturday the Huddersfield Giants lost in the last five minutes against Wigan Warriors in the Rugby League’s showpiece Challenge Cup Final at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
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