Nottingham Forest Trivia
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6correct to beat the crowd
50 free Nottingham Forest trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Nottingham Forest were founded by shinty players in a pub in 1865, gave Arsenal their red shirts, and remain the only club in Europe to have won the European Cup more times than their own league. This quiz covers the whole story: the twelve Garibaldi-red caps, the 1898 Cup final upset over Derby, Grenville Morris, Roy Dwight's broken leg at Wembley in 1959, the committee that ran the club, Brian Clough's arrival twelve weeks after his 44 days at Leeds, Peter Taylor's eye for a player, the title a year after promotion, the 42-game unbeaten run, Trevor Francis's million pounds, Malmö in Munich and Hamburg in Madrid, the Anderlecht bribe, Clough hitting his own fans, Sheringham's first live Premier League goal, three relegations, the fall to League One, the Al-Hasawi years, Evangelos Marinakis, Steve Cooper's play-off win, the points deduction and the season of four managers. Early questions suit anyone who has heard 'Mull of Kintyre' at the City Ground; later ones are for Reds who know their Trent End from their Bridgford Stand: which club Forest donated shirts to besides Arsenal, who Günter Netzer had never heard of, and how far W. H. Revis kicked a ball in 1870. Good for a supporters' club night or a Nottingham pub quiz. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's article on the club and its history, and each question shows its source.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Nottingham Forest were founded in 1865 at a meeting in the Clinton Arms by players of which sport?
Shinty
Shinty: the stick-and-ball players backed J. S. Scrimshaw's proposal to take up association football instead, and at the same meeting ordered a dozen tasselled red caps.
Q 02Forest's 'Garibaldi red' colours honour Giuseppe Garibaldi, leader of which volunteer force?
The Italian Redshirts
The Italian Redshirts: clubs were then told apart by their headgear, so the founders' tribute to Garibaldi's volunteers began as a dozen red caps with tassels rather than shirts.
Q 03Which club, founded in 1886 with former Forest players in its ranks, took its red from Forest's colours?
Arsenal
Arsenal: ex-Forest men such as Fred Beardsley helped start the Woolwich club and chose its colours; the old tale that Forest posted them a full set of red shirts is disputed by Arsenal's own historians.
Q 04Forest's Sam Weller Widdowson is credited with inventing which piece of football kit in 1874?
Shin pads
Shin pads: Widdowson, also a Nottinghamshire cricketer, cut down a pair of cricket pads and strapped them outside his stockings; today the Laws of the Game make them compulsory.
Q 05Forest's presumed name comes from Forest Racecourse, historically part of what?
Sherwood
In their early years Forest were a multi-sport club whose baseball team were British champions in 1899.
Q 06Turned down by the Football League in 1888, Forest won which rival competition in 1892 before being admitted?
The Alliance
The Alliance: the Football Alliance was set up in 1889 as a rival to the League, and when the two merged in 1892 its last champions, Forest, went straight into the First Division.
Q 07Forest's first FA Cup win in 1898 was 3-1 over which club, who had beaten them 5-0 five days earlier?
Derby County
Derby County were strong favourites after that 5-0 win, but Forest had rested six of their cup side for it, and Arthur Capes scored twice in the final.
Q 08Forest's all-time record goalscorer, with 213 goals, is which early 20th-century forward?
Grenville Morris
He was the club's top scorer for five seasons in a row after Forest's first relegation in 1906.
Q 09Which Forest right-back is celebrated as the first black footballer to win a full England cap, in 1978?
Viv Anderson
Viv Anderson, born in Nottingham, made his debut against Czechoslovakia that November while Forest were league champions, and later became Alex Ferguson's first signing at Old Trafford.
Q 10Roy Dwight, who scored and broke his leg in the 1959 FA Cup final, was the cousin of which musician?
Elton John
Reg Dwight became Elton John; Forest hung on with nine fit men to win 2-1.
Q 11Which manager, in charge since 1939, led Forest to the 1959 FA Cup before retiring the following year?
Billy Walker
Billy Walker had already won the Cup as Sheffield Wednesday's manager in 1935, and in the 1959 semi-final his Forest side knocked out Aston Villa, the club he had captained as a player.
Q 12Johnny Carey's 1966-67 Forest side lost an FA Cup semi-final to which club?
Tottenham Hotspur
Tottenham Hotspur won 2-1 with goals from Jimmy Greaves and Frank Saul and went on to lift the Cup, so a Forest side that also finished runners-up in the league ended the season with nothing to show for it.
Q 13Brian Clough arrived at Forest in January 1975, months after being sacked following 44 days at which club?
Q 21Which Forest player did Günter Netzer admit in 1979 he had never heard of, yet said had run the game?
John McGovern
John McGovern, the quiet captain who had followed Clough from Hartlepools to Derby, Leeds and Forest, had just bossed the midfield as a 1-0 win in Cologne sent Forest to the final.
Q 22Forest's first European Cup final win, 1-0 over Malmö in 1979, was played in which stadium?
Munich's Olympiastadion
Munich's Olympiastadion: Forest's record signing, ineligible until the final, headed the only goal at the far post on his European debut; a year later the trophy was retained in Madrid.
Q 23Which club did Forest beat 2-1 on aggregate to win the 1979 European Super Cup?
Barcelona
Leeds United
Leeds United, the reigning champions, sacked him in September 1974; the Forest side he took over that winter lay 13th in the Second Division, and within five years he had made them champions of Europe.
Q 14What was the first trophy of the Clough and Taylor era, won over Orient in December 1976?
The Anglo-Scottish Cup
The Anglo-Scottish Cup: Clough said anyone who called it a nothing trophy was "absolutely crackers", because it was Forest's first silverware since 1959 and "it made all the difference".
Q 15Forest's 1977 promotion, in third place with just 52 points, was confirmed while the squad was where?
Mid-air en route to Mallorca
Mid-air en route to Mallorca: Forest had finished their fixtures and Bolton still had games in hand, so word of Bolton's 1-0 defeat by Wolves reached the squad on the flight to their end-of-season break.
Q 16Which striker did Peter Taylor secretly trail in 1977 to check his drinking and gambling, before Forest turned him into a centre-back?
Kenny Burns
Kenny Burns: Taylor decided the wild reputation was exaggerated, Forest paid Birmingham City £150,000, and within a year the new centre-back was Footballer of the Year.
Q 17Which goalkeeper did newly promoted Forest buy from Stoke City in September 1977?
Peter Shilton
Peter Shilton: "Shilton wins you matches," Peter Taylor argued, and with him in goal Forest conceded just 24 times in 42 league games on their way to the title.
Q 18Which Forest player was voted PFA Young Player of the Year in the 1977-78 title season?
Tony Woodcock
Tony Woodcock had been loaned out to Lincoln City and Doncaster Rovers before forcing his way into Forest's promotion side, and he won his first England cap weeks after the title was secured.
Q 19Forest's record 42-match unbeaten league run was ended in December 1978 by a 2-0 defeat at which club?
Liverpool
Liverpool, the reigning European champions whom Forest had knocked out of the European Cup that autumn, were the side that finally beat them, 2-0 at Anfield.
Q 20Who became English football's first £1 million player when he joined Forest from Birmingham City in February 1979?
Trevor Francis
Trevor Francis headed the only goal of that May's European Cup final on his European debut; Clough liked to claim the fee was really £999,999, to keep the milestone from going to his head.
Barcelona, the Cup Winners' Cup holders, wiped out Forest's first-leg lead with a penalty at the Camp Nou, only for Forest to equalise before half-time and carry the trophy home.
Q 24Which side knocked holders Forest out of the 1980-81 European Cup in the first round, winning 1-0 home and away?
CSKA Sofia
CSKA Sofia won both legs 1-0, and Forest's captain later said that losing twice to such modest opponents shook the self-belief of a side that had been champions of Europe two years running.
Q 25Forest's 1-0 defeat by Nacional in the 1980 Intercontinental Cup was the first staged as a single match in which city?
Tokyo
Tokyo: after years of ill-tempered home-and-away ties, Toyota's sponsorship turned the fixture into a one-off match on neutral ground in Japan, and Forest, who had declined to play the year before, lost the first one.
Q 26Forest's 1984 UEFA Cup semi-final defeat was tainted when which club later admitted paying the referee?
Anderlecht
Anderlecht overturned Forest's 2-0 first-leg lead after a string of contentious decisions; in 1997 it emerged that the club's chairman had paid the Spanish referee, and UEFA banned Anderlecht from Europe for a year.
Q 27Why was Brian Clough fined and banned from the touchline after a pitch invasion in 1989?
He struck his own fans
He struck his own fans: Clough cuffed supporters celebrating a 5-2 League Cup win over QPR, was fined £5,000, then invited two of them in, apologised and persuaded both to kiss him on the cheek.
Q 28Forest's 1989 FA Cup semi-final against Liverpool was abandoned after six minutes in which stadium disaster?
The Hillsborough disaster
The Hillsborough disaster: a crush on the terraces killed 97 Liverpool supporters; the Taylor Report that followed ended standing at leading grounds, and the City Ground's own Trent End terrace closed in 1994.
Q 29In Clough's only FA Cup final, in 1991, Forest lost 2-1 to Tottenham after an own goal by which defender?
Des Walker
Des Walker put the ball into his own net in extra time; Stuart Pearce's free kick had put Forest ahead in a final remembered for Paul Gascoigne's two wild early tackles and the knee injury that followed.
Q 30Which striker scored the only goal in the first live televised Premier League game, Forest v Liverpool?
Teddy Sheringham
Teddy Sheringham's strike was the first live goal on Sky Sports and almost his last act for Forest: he was sold to Tottenham a week later, and the club went down that season.