The battle of Nottingham

A pre-season friendly it might be, but Colin Calderwood and Charlie McParland will dearly want to get one over the other in the battle of Nottingham.

Notts and Forest meet at Meadow Lane on August 2, a week before their respective curtain raisers in the league.

And it is the first chance the managers have met in football since their acrimonious split 12 months ago.

Because as much as the relationship between the pair has remained civil since, the departure of long standing coach McParland from the City Ground twelve months ago ultimately left a bitter taste in the mouth.

Shortly after the 2006/7 season finished, McParland was told he was no longer part of the back room staff-a decision believed to have been made after disagreements over tactics and team selection that ultimately saw Forest bomb out of the play-offs to Yeovil.

McParland had indicated he thought the squad was more than capable of promotion and it was easy to see Calderwood’s somewhat negative decisions and man management at the time frustrated him.

But the decision to let him go was rough justice for a man who did a magnificent job in a number of roles for over a decade for The Reds.

He had been a major factor in the success of the conveyor belt of talent that emerged form the youth and reserve teams for several years and that allowed Forest to remain financially afloat after the sales of Jermaine Jenas, Michael Dawson and Andy Reid.

An official statement was made several weeks after McParland had left- adding more flames to the fire about the way in which the club had kept the worst kept secret in the city.

That may well all be forgotten by the time the two meet, as the task of bedding in new faces in both sides with just a week left before the new season will be of top priority.

But you can’t help but feel even with two divisions separating the two sides, local and personal pride will still be just as fierce to grab a result.

Officials at Meadow Lane will hope however the battle doesn’t spill into the stands after the pure embarrassment of last season’s pitch invasion after Forest’s 3-1 win in a similar pre-season tie.

Fans of both clubs shamed themselves that night with violence that took the game’s profile in the city back a step to something out of football’s dark days in the 1980’s.

Needless to say precautions and policing will be far stricter this time around. Fortunately the only place passions may get a little heated is between the technical areas.