Ask most supporters to name the greatest nights in the club’s history and they will start in Munich and Madrid. But the Nottingham Forest FA Cup story is older than the European Cups, older than the City Ground itself, and it is the reason the Reds’ trophy cabinet has a Victorian shelf. Forest have won the FA Cup twice — beating Derby County in 1898 and Luton Town in 1959 — and lost a third final, to Tottenham Hotspur in 1991.
Here is how each of them happened, and why the competition still carries a particular weight around the Trent.
1898: the first Nottingham Forest FA Cup win
Forest reached the final on 16 April 1898 and were sent to Crystal Palace — then the home of the final, long before Wembley existed — to face Derby County in front of a reported crowd of around 62,000. It was a Midlands showdown, and Derby had the most feared forward in England in Steve Bloomer.
Bloomer scored. It did not matter. Arthur Capes struck twice and John McPherson added a third as Forest won 3-1 to lift the first major trophy in the club’s history. Captain Frank Forman collected it, and a club founded in 1865 finally had silverware to match its age.
There is a detail that makes the 1898 win even more of a full stop: it was won in Forest’s last season at the Town Ground. That September the club crossed the river and moved into the City Ground, where they have played ever since. The Reds effectively left their old home with the FA Cup under their arm.
1959: ten men, a broken leg and a second FA Cup
Sixty-one years passed before the second one. Billy Walker’s Forest side reached Wembley on 2 May 1959 to face Luton Town, and inside 14 minutes the final looked settled. Roy Dwight scored in the 10th minute; Tommy Wilson made it 2-0 four minutes later.
Then came the moment that turned a comfortable afternoon into one of the great Wembley endurance tests. Dwight broke his leg in the 33rd minute. Substitutes were not permitted in English football until 1965, so Forest played the remaining hour of an FA Cup final with ten men. Dwight — a cousin of Reg Dwight, later better known as Elton John — watched the rest of it on a hospital television.
Luton pulled one back through Dave Pacey after the hour, and Forest spent the closing half hour defending a one-goal lead a man short. They held on. Captain Jack Burkitt climbed the steps to lift the trophy, and the Reds had their second FA Cup.
It remains, to this day, the most recent one.
1991: the final Brian Clough never won
The FA Cup is the famous gap on Brian Clough’s extraordinary honours list. He won the league, two European Cups and four League Cups with Forest, but never the trophy he most wanted, and the closest he came was 18 May 1991 against Tottenham.
Stuart Pearce settled the nerves after 16 minutes with a free-kick struck so hard the net barely had time to react. Tottenham equalised through Paul Stewart, and in extra time a Des Walker own goal decided it, 2-1 to Spurs. The afternoon is also remembered for Paul Gascoigne’s wild early challenge on Gary Charles and the self-inflicted knee injury that ended his own final minutes later.
Clough retired in 1993 without an FA Cup winner’s medal. For a manager who won virtually everything else, it is the one that got away.
Semi-finals and the near misses
Forest have reached the FA Cup semi-final on a number of occasions without going further, and two of those ties sit at opposite ends of the emotional scale. In 1988 they were beaten by Liverpool. A year later the two clubs were drawn together again, and the semi-final at Hillsborough on 15 April 1989 was abandoned after the disaster in which 97 Liverpool supporters lost their lives. The tie was replayed at Old Trafford, where Liverpool won 3-1. It is a day that belongs to the bereaved families rather than to any football club’s records.
In the modern era, the standout run came in 2021/22, when a Championship Forest side knocked out Arsenal and then Leicester City before reaching a quarter-final against Liverpool at the City Ground. They lost it by a single goal, but the run did more than most results that season to convince supporters the club was climbing again.
Nottingham Forest FA Cup wins: the quick answer
- 1898 — Nottingham Forest 3-1 Derby County (Crystal Palace). Scorers: Capes 2, McPherson.
- 1959 — Nottingham Forest 2-1 Luton Town (Wembley). Scorers: Dwight, Wilson.
- Runners-up: 1991 — lost 2-1 to Tottenham Hotspur after extra time.
Two wins places Forest level with a long list of clubs in the competition’s history and, unusually, gives them a European record that outstrips their domestic cup one. The Reds have won the European Cup as many times as they have won the FA Cup, and more times than they have won the league. Their four League Cups are the club’s most successful domestic cup competition by some distance.
Under Oliver Glasner, the Reds enter the FA Cup at the third-round stage as a Premier League club. Glasner knows the competition’s power better than most English top-flight coaches: he won it with Crystal Palace before taking the Forest job in July 2026, and he has never hidden how much a cup run can reshape a season.
For the full list of everything Forest have won, see our guide to the club’s major honours. Full competition records and round-by-round history are published by The FA, with club information on the official Nottingham Forest website.
