I remember going to Forest games. They were dreadful.
Stuck as a mere Football League nothingness for upwards of 20 years, many a manager have tried, and inevitably failed to secure even the slightest grain of success at the City Ground.
Mostly useless footballers would come and go, hopes of reaching the promised land would occasionally present themselves with weight, but would always fall away and die off, stuck in confinement to a seemingly never-ending run of miserable away days and frustrating second-tier football.
A club wreathed in European and top-flight history and success, that now resembled that of a grumpy old man recounting how his generation did it better than ours.
As I say, I remember going to those days. They just felt like another step on an endless road. Grinding out disappointing results up and down the country in the second tier, with teams and recruitment plans full of misery.
Those games could be fun at times, sure, just as supporting your club can be nigh on anywhere and in any situation, but they didn't feel like events. They didn't feel like they had any sort of end purpose.
Sabri Lamouchi arrived and got the heavily-split fanbase to pull in the same direction for once, and almost got us into the playoffs himself if not for the most Forest-esque of final day collapses.
He was followed in by Chris Hughton, who navigated us into barely surviving the drop into League One, before losing his job after seven games in the season after, after nearly guiding us there himself.
Nobody could have possibly predicted the rollercoaster ride that was to come afterwards.
I remember Steve Cooper's first game at The City Ground. It was a brisk September afternoon against Milwall. His arrival was met to a mixed reaction, with plenty a Swansea fan reminding us that his style of football would get us nowhere, after two near-misses on promotion back in his native Wales with them.
He made his way out onto the turf before everyone else, and greeted his new fans and question-raises with an introductory round of applause, the same way he would do so at every City Ground contest to come in his career.
After a miraculous cross from range by Max Lowe flew in from miles out on the day, a first point and a stabilised performance had presented itself, and the hope of Cooper stopping the rot, keeping us in the second tier and giving us something to build from was born.
If you predicted, at the time, what was to come next, you didn't.
Plenty of people in the Forest ranks will hold their own special little memories of Cooper now in the present day.
For some, it may be the away day to Barnsley, where Lyle Taylor popped up with a penalty and a stab home, both in added time, to send the cold, success-thirsty souls in the away end at Ashton Gate into a pandemonium of thrill and hope.
Or maybe it was the two games against Swansea, where Cooper's new team beat his old one 9-2 across two games, in two of our biggest wins seen in years, and Sam Surridge securing the first hat-trick seen at the club since 2017.
In those games, there was something different about Nottingham Forest for all to see. There was a purpose, a clear-minded way of playing and sense of upwards direction that just felt different.
The City Ground, by all accounts, has been a dangerous managerial melting pot ever since the departure of Brian Clough way back when. 19 men had stood in the dugout with the attempt of taking a sleeping giant back to the big time, and all had failed. Some miserably, some disappointingly.
Sure, there were times across these spells where we all thought we'd found "the one" to do it, but ultimately they always fizzled out.
But, as I say, there was something different about this guy. And this time, it was more than just a hopeful feeling. It was belief. And soon after, it was pandemonium.
Those nerves on the train down to London in May 2022 were palpable.
All that separated my terrible, chaotic and hopeless football club from the one thing we had dreamed of for years was at least 90 minutes of football in a stadium visited for the first time by my generation.
With ferocious sun beating down on us all, with everything hanging on the line, when a James Garner ball met the knee of a Ryan Yates-pressured Levi Colwill to ripple the Wembley net for the only time in the evening, was the exact moment that those hopes and dreams became full on, bona-fide belief.
We believed the hype. We believed those winning runs we went on so many times during the season, runs we were familiar with at times but wary of becoming hopeful off the back of as we had been let down so, so many times before.
When the final whistle blew and "Freed from Desire" rang out on the Wembley speakers, many a red mind melted at the prospect of what they had just witnessed.
They were Premier League. They had "Stepped Up", as the banners woven around Wembley so proudly read out. For us. Were they really for us? That didn't actually happen, did it?
Within the space of nine months, an unassuming managerial appointment met with mixed emotion, largely one of relief that at least Hughton had a successor, had become the second-most important manager in Nottingham Forest history.
A 23-year long wait to taste the big time once again loomed over the club for every year of its existence. The very hope of one day getting back to a place where we were once so successful became such a hope, such a dream that it soon became painful.
For fans of my generation, we hadn't experienced the likes of this. Ever. All we knew was the Championship, and League One for a spell for some as well. This miserable little football maverick living off of its former glories was all we knew.
The man who took us to a place we knew little of meant so much more to the club than just a man in a dugout. He was a figurehead. A perfect spokesman who never missed a beat in his adoration for Nottingham, its residents and its big red club.
He made a pure effort to understand this club and its culture, and where many before him had felt the Forest job as a painful burden, Steve Cooper embraced it with everything he had. He treated the job as nothing but a privilege, and gave everything he had for it.
And then there were the games. The glorious games. The 90-minute packages of surreality where you couldn't quite believe it was the same tired old Nottingham Forest of the Championship days competing toe-to-toe with Premier League sides, and beating them comfortably.
Arsenal were dismissed at the City Ground in comfortable fashion. Leicester were demolished. Liverpool got the edge on us in that promotion year, but by lord did we give them a game with our Championship hopefuls wreathed in red.
Maybe Fulham away at the end of the season in the league was more your taste, as Philip Zinckernagel rammed one home from close range to beat those at the top of the tree as the promotion ride really took shape.
And then there was the Premier League itself. Liverpool didn't get the edge on us at the City Ground that time as Taiwo Awoniyi sunk his former team, in the same fashion he had already dispatched West Ham for our first Premier League win in two decades.
Those raging atmospheres at the world famous City Ground struck fear into many a team, few lesser than the ever-present Manchester City, after a 10-minute-long barrage of noise succeeded Chris Woods late leveller.
Or maybe the three games that secured our Premier League services at the first time of asking. Brighton were dispatched in a similarly too-close-for-comfort fashion as Southampton were. Arsenal came to us hoping for the slightest chance of winning the lot, but were sent packing by a team holding on for history.
All of a sudden, games felt like more than games. They felt like more than just something to do. They were events again, must-see attractions where every person in the building was part of the puzzle.
The results have faded, true, and the party seems to have come to a close. To the cold and calculated mind, the time may be right to wave goodbye to a modern-day club legend. But these darker times in the Cooper era serve only as a moment to remember the wonderful things he has achieved while here. The very thing we dreamed of maybe one day at least coming close to having a go at, was completed in full with this wonderful Welshman at the helm.
For his just-over-two-year long rollercoaster of a spell, Steve Cooper united the un-uniteable. He led those that had lost all belief back into the most glorious of experiences in decades. He made a city, a club, a thousands-strong family, believe in footballing happiness once again.
I remember going to Forest games. They were bloody brilliant.
Thank you Steve, for everything.
