This could be our greatest (if not only) chance to restart the numerous relationships that surround Nottingham Forest, to build bridges & rescind the negativity that has been suffocating everyone that loves this great club.
There are currently broken relationships wherever you look at Forest. The fans distrust the board, have little faith in the efforts on many players & feel the local journalists have let them down. The board seemed to have little (if any) respect for the fans after the complaints & protests of last season (if they ever had any at all, which seems doubtful) & there have been personal attacks on social media sites on some of our local journalists who have probably received as little communication from the club as the fans have, virtually none, giving them little to report unless the club wanted publicity.
So, with a new regime taking control of running of the club, a new season for the players & team management to show their willingness to fight for our cause, a new approach to media relations & a (hopefully) tragedy free season for the fans to support, is this not the blank canvas we should all have been praying for?
Without doubt the negativity that surrounded the club over the last few years has been throttling the life out of all involved. Nobody has been happy with the activities at the club over the last 12 months, we need to build again.
It is these thoughts that suggest the early signs of the Al-Hasawi family will be a great match with Forest. While fans were panicking because the takeover wasn't moving fast enough, Mr Hasawi (or more specifically his wife) posted a photo of his own daughter in a Forest shirt on a social media site. This act most certainly helped ease the fans fears. Someone was out there trying to lead our club forward. Significantly the recently released statements on the Forest website are intended to calm nerves. From the Al-Hasawi family it stated quite clearly they want the fans on side & want to build a bright future (while you could argue 'what else could they say' the simply reply is they could have said nothing. I'm sure many, including the previous regime, would have said nothing.) The fact they said anything at all implies a much more open future between hierarchy & fans.
It was also interesting to see a note from the club warning to ignore any following media speculation.
Very little is known of Fawaz Al-Hasawi so an expectation of big money being spent is perhaps a little hopeful. What we do know is this, he has spent the last decade as president of his local club Qadsia, he has put money into that club to finance a push for success & he has been rewarded with trophies for doing so.
Make no mistake, here we seem to have a man who not only knows how to communicate with fans of a football clubs, he also knows how to reward those fans with successful on the field.
Moving on to the local press, it's fair to say [I believe] that the local press haven't had much in the name of 'breaking news' in recent years. I said recently the last Forest related story I remember being broken on a local media outlet was Darren Huckerby signing on loan a long long time ago. This of course isn't down to the journalists themselves & I'm sure there have been a few stories I've missed, but although they obviously want the big news first, the previous regime at Nottingham Forest were so often on media lockdown there was little for them to report. A 'no comment' is incredibly difficult to expand on without simply making things up. It would seem that is about to change too meaning the relationship between local media and fans can possibly reach a happy medium too.
Last season we had a manager with his hands tied, players under immense pressure, frustrated fans & a new chairman trying to operate a business under circumstances he couldn't possibly of imagined when he arrived in October.
Some of the staff may well leave of course, but whoever remains will be in exactly the same positions as us fans, enjoying a fresh start. The future looks bright, lets embrace it.
