John McGovern Nottingham Forest is a phrase that should come with a trophy count attached. He is the man who lifted the First Division title, the League Cup and then the European Cup in Munich and Madrid in consecutive summers – and he did it as the least fashionable footballer in the room.
Brian Clough’s Reds are remembered for the showmen. Trevor Francis had the million-pound price tag, John Robertson had the left foot, Peter Shilton had the gloves. McGovern had the armband. In an era when Forest won everything there was to win, the captain was a slight, unshowy midfielder who ran with his arms held high and his elbows out, and who was booed by his own supporters at more than one club before they worked out what he was for.
From Hartlepools to the City Ground
McGovern was born in Montrose on 28 October 1949. His father died when he was a boy and the family moved south to the north-east of England, which is how a Scottish teenager came to be handed a debut by a 30-year-old rookie manager at Hartlepools United. Clough gave him his first senior game at 16. He would spend most of the next 16 years following the same voice around the country.
Derby County came first, in 1968, for a fee reported at around £7,500. McGovern was part of the side that climbed out of the Second Division and then won the First Division title in 1971-72 – Derby’s first championship. When Clough walked out of the Baseball Ground and, eventually, into Elland Road, McGovern followed him to Leeds United for the 44 days that have since become a film.
Leeds did not want Clough and, by extension, did not want his players. McGovern arrived at Nottingham Forest in February 1975, alongside John O’Hare, for a fee in the region of £60,000. Forest were a mid-table Second Division club at the time. Within five years they were champions of Europe twice over.
John McGovern Nottingham Forest: the captain Clough trusted
Clough handed McGovern the armband and never really took it back. That decision tells you most of what you need to know about how the manager saw the game. Forest’s best players were forwards and wingers who needed licence; the captain’s job was to hold the middle of the pitch together, give the ball to Robertson, and make sure nobody’s head dropped.
He was not a goalscorer and he was not a tackler in the Kenny Burns mould. He was a passer and a positional player, the one who kept Forest’s shape while the front men went hunting. Supporters who had been sold a hero were often slow to warm to him. Clough, who did not indulge popularity contests, simply kept picking him.
Promotion came in 1977. The title, astonishingly, came the very next season – the 1977-78 championship Forest won as a newly promoted side, still one of the most improbable seasons in English football, and one we covered in full in our look at how Clough’s promoted side won the First Division. Back-to-back League Cups followed in 1978 and 1979, part of the run of finals detailed in our guide to Forest’s League Cup wins.
Munich 1979 and Madrid 1980
On 30 May 1979, at the Olympiastadion in Munich, Forest beat Malmo 1-0 in the European Cup final. Robertson went past his full-back on the left and crossed; Francis, making his European debut for the club, headed it in at the far post. McGovern climbed the steps and lifted the trophy.
Twelve months later, on 28 May 1980 at the Santiago Bernabeu, Forest did it again. Hamburg, with Kevin Keegan in their side, were beaten 1-0. This time Robertson scored it himself. McGovern lifted the European Cup for the second year running – a feat only a handful of captains in the competition’s history can claim, and one set out in our full account of how the Reds won the European Cup twice.
He had, by then, won league championships with two different clubs under the same manager. No Forest player since has come close to the collection.
The uncapped Scot
Here is the detail that still makes Forest supporters shake their heads: John McGovern was never capped by Scotland. Not once. A man who captained an English club to consecutive European Cups, who won two league titles and two League Cups, and who played more than 250 games for Forest in all competitions, never got a senior international call.
It is the clearest evidence of the thing that defined his career. McGovern did not look like an elite footballer. He looked like a man doing a job. Selectors, like crowds, tend to reward the eye-catching, and there was nothing eye-catching about him beyond the fact that the best manager in the country would not play a final without him.
After the armband
McGovern left Forest in 1982 to become player-manager at Bolton Wanderers, and later managed Rotherham United. He returned to the City Ground in an ambassadorial role, hosting matchdays and speaking at supporters’ events, which means a generation of Forest fans who never saw him play have still shaken his hand. The club’s official website keeps his place on the honours board permanent.
For all the names on those 1979 and 1980 teamsheets, only one man’s hands are on both trophies at the moment they were won. The armband belonged to the quiet one. If you want the wider story of the era that produced him, start with our piece on Brian Clough at Nottingham Forest, then see where he lands in our all-time Reds greatest XI.
