Diehard Nottingham Forest fans based in Bahrain celebrated long into the evening after their team won promotion to the English Premier League (EPL) by beating Huddersfield Town 1-0 in the Championship play-off at Wembley yesterday.
“I can’t tell you how I feel right now,” Simon Bromyard, 49, told the GDN from the Bahrain Rugby Football Club (BRFC) where he had been cheering the Forest team on with some friends. “What a game! What a win!”
A project director in a corporate concern, Nottingham native Bromyard has been based in the kingdom for 22 years and has been supporting his home side since he was a child.
“Twenty-three years out of the top-tier,” he said, referring to Forest’s time away from the EPL since relegation at the end of the 1998-99 season. “And now we’re going to be back, playing in the big league! I’m bursting with joy right now!”
There were similar scenes of joy at a popular sports lounge in Adliya where Steve Cox, a pilot with a private airline, had watched the match with his friends.
“This is absolutely incredible,” he told the GDN, as his companions screamed and whooped with joy behind him. “We’ve waited for this moment for so long and it has finally arrived.”
Bromyard, second from right, with friends at the BRFC
Cox, 50, is originally from the Midlands but said he has been supporting Forest since the late 1970s. “I think my decision to start supporting Forest was a rebellion against my father, who is an Aston Villa fan,” he joked, eliciting a shout of approval from his colleague, Laura Sherrington, who is a lifelong Villa supporter.
“But, seriously, what a game this was! Of course, lady luck played a part, what with the own goal by Huddersfield and the two penalty decisions that went our way,” Cox continued. “But, it was time for our team to go back into the top-tier – and, now, we are!”
All credit for the team’s success, he added, should go to new coach, Welshman Steve Cooper, who turned the team’s fortunes around.
“Yes, Cooper is the reason why we’re celebrating right now,” Bromyard agreed. “I mean, we were rock-bottom after the first eight games this season. Then, Cooper came in and changed everything. He’s been fantastic for this team.”
Now, he added, the next EPL season was going to be so much fun to watch as a Forest fan. Cox also felt the same way. “I wish I could regularly fly back to the United Kingdom (UK) to watch those Forest games,” he laughed.
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