Ask a neutral what Nottingham Forest are called and you will get three different answers: the Reds, Forest, or the Tricky Trees. All three are correct, and all three come from somewhere specific. The Nottingham Forest nickname story takes in an Italian revolutionary, a set of red caps bought in 1865, a design competition in the 1970s and a tree that has been mocked and adored in equal measure ever since.
Here is where each one actually comes from.
Nottingham Forest nickname No.1: the Reds and the Garibaldi
Forest were formed in 1865, when a group of players from a stick-and-ball game called shinty met at the Clinton Arms in Nottingham and decided to switch to football. One of the first orders of business was kit — and the club agreed to buy a set of red caps.
The choice was not random. Giuseppe Garibaldi, the figurehead of Italian unification, was one of the most admired men in Britain at the time, and his volunteers were known for their red shirts. Forest picked the same colour in tribute, and it stuck. More than 160 years later Forest supporters still call the home shirt “the Garibaldi”, and the club is one of very few in world football whose kit is named after a person rather than a colour or a sponsor.
That decision has a footnote Forest fans enjoy repeating. In 1886, a newly formed club in Woolwich — then called Dial Square, soon Royal Arsenal — found itself short of kit. Several of its founders were Nottingham men, and Forest posted them a set of red shirts and a ball to get them started. Arsenal’s own club history acknowledges the gift. Which is why, if you want to be technical about it, the most famous red shirt in London is a hand-me-down from the Trent.
Where the name ‘Forest’ comes from
This one is geography, not Sherwood. The club took its name from the area of open ground north of the city centre known simply as The Forest — home to Nottingham’s racecourse and the site of the club’s earliest matches. It survives today as the Forest Recreation Ground, a short walk from the city centre and still used for football most weekends.
Forest played at several homes before settling on the south bank of the River Trent, moving to the City Ground in 1898. That is the ground the club has occupied ever since, and the one that gives the modern crest half of its imagery.
Nottingham Forest nickname No.2: the Tricky Trees
The Tricky Trees is the newest of the three, and it is a straight lift from the badge.
Forest adopted their current crest in 1974, chosen through a public design competition. It is deliberately simple: a stylised tree, a pair of wavy lines beneath it representing the Trent, and the club’s name arced above. Two stars sit at the top of the badge, one for each of the European Cups won in 1979 and 1980.
The tree did the rest. “Tricky Trees” began life as terrace wordplay — part affection, part wind-up — and has been fully adopted by the fanbase, which is usually how these things go. You will hear it in chants, on flags in the Trent End and in the name of half the Forest fan channels on the internet.
The other things Forest gave football
The badge is not the only piece of Forest heritage that ended up everywhere else. Sam Weller Widdowson, a Forest player and England international, is credited with inventing shin pads in 1874, after cutting down a pair of cricket pads and strapping them to the outside of his socks. He was laughed at. Every professional footballer on earth now wears his idea.
The referee’s whistle is also widely said to have been used in a competitive match for the first time in a Forest game in 1878, replacing the handkerchief-waving that came before it. The club’s official website is where much of this lineage is documented, and it is a fair claim to make: Forest are one of the oldest professional football clubs in the world, and the game was still being invented around them.
One more thing that makes Forest unusual
Here is the statistic that beats every nickname. Forest have won the European Cup twice and the English league title once. No other club in the history of the competition has won Europe’s biggest prize more often than it has won its own domestic championship.
It is the purest expression of what Forest are: a club whose greatest achievements make no logical sense whatsoever, from a city that was never supposed to produce them. You can read the full list in our Nottingham Forest honours guide.
Nottingham Forest nicknames: the quick version
- The Reds — from the red caps bought in 1865 in tribute to Giuseppe Garibaldi.
- The Garibaldi — what supporters call the home shirt, for the same reason.
- The Tricky Trees — from the tree on the crest adopted in 1974.
- Forest — from The Forest, the open ground north of the city where the club first played.
Four names, one club, and a badge that explains most of it if you look closely enough. For everything happening at the City Ground under Oliver Glasner this season, follow our full Nottingham Forest coverage.
