Reds and Rams

Reds and Rams: A Story of the East Midlands Derby is the tale of one of the most fiercely fought football rivalries in the world. Hewed from the Victorian industrial revolution, Nottingham Forest and Derby County have contested league games for 130 years. Ever since the 1898 FA Cup Final, the rivalry has ebbed and flowed, with each club enjoying both periods of sustained success and existential threat. The reasons for this deep-rooted antipathy are numerous, yet ultimately it boils down to two football clubs similar in stature, size, history and geography existing cheek by jowl. In essence, they are like two teenage siblings bickering about anything and everything. Throughout, they have traded managers and players, producing deep and lasting enmity. Derby is renowned for its railways, Nottingham for Robin Hood. Each city has its own proud identity and history. The only thing they have ever agreed on is the genius of Brian Clough.