Nottingham Forest 95/96: Despite having 12 players ready, production output issues meant that only 3 figures were officially released for Nottingham Forest which were Steve Stone, Mark Crossley and Bryan Roy. Stuart Pearce came the closest to being the fourth release but by the time production issues were solved Nottingham Forest had already changed their kit so Corinthian opted to release all 12 in the later strip. Frank Clark had a production error in which his name was misspelt (Clarke), this is present in both his production model and unreleased collectors card which might have been the reason for his non-release. Lars Bohinen also has a Nottingham Forest base code of 112 since he was originally scheduled for Forest before his move to Blackburn. I will alter Bohinen back to his original pose and like him also repaint Stan Collymore - who was also originally selected for Nottingham Forest [insert Master Pic Bohinen & Collymore]. Of the above, Jason Lee, Frank Clark, Des Lyttle, Dean Saunders and Alf-Inge Haaland (differing from his Norway version) were the unreleased masters making the total squad up to the usual 18 planned figures. [insert pic, Lyttle, Saunders, Haaland, Clark]

To make up the 26 player squad I will be making 7 players, those players are; Carl Tiler, Bobby Howe, Tommy Wright, Chris Allen, Paul McGregor, Alan Fettis and Andy Hill who was assistant to Frank Clark.    

Kit Facts: The new strip debuted on the opening day of the 1994/95 season as Forest had made a comeback to the Premier league under Frank Clark's stewardship. Bryan Roy made his debut on this day (20th August 1994) and scored the only goal of the game resulting in a 1-0 away win over Ipswich. It was worn until 5th May 1996 in which Forest played QPR at home for the last game of the season comfortably winning 3-0 thanks to goals from Steve Stone, Bryan Roy and Bobby Howe. Although this was it's last official date used in the Premier League fixtures, Forest did play some pre-season friendlies still using this kit - by which point Dean Saunders had signed for them from Galatasaray so he did in fact feature in this strip.

 

Achievements 94/95:

Premier League: 16th

FA Cup: R4 (3-1 loss to Norwich)

League Cup: R3 (2-0 loss to Blackburn Rovers)

 

Achievements 95/96:

Premier League: 16th

FA Cup: R4 (4-3 aggregate loss to Manchester City)

League Cup: R4 (2-1 loss to Wolverhampton Wanderers)

 

Achievements: This kit spanned two seasons, from 94/95 to 95/96. Forest finished 3rd in the 94/95 season qualifying for the UEFA cup. They reached the 4th Round of both the League Cup and the FA Cup losing 2-1 away to Crystal Palace and 2-0 away to Millwall.

The following 95/96 season saw a dip in form mainly due to selling Collymore to Liverpool (for then a national record of 8.4 million) and injury spells to both Bryan Roy and Kevin Campbell hampered them further. Forest did reach the quarter finals of the UEFA cup only to be knocked out of the competition by Bayern Munich. They were narrowly narrowly defeated 2-1 in the first leg before being dismantled 5-1 and ending any further dreams of a European trophy (however they do hold the accolade of being the only English team left in the competition at this time). They only reached 2nd Round of the League Cup losing 5-4 on aggregate to Bradford City. They went further in the FA Cup though reaching the quarter finals but were knocked out in a 1-0 defeat to Aston Villa. This means that (despite their efforts) Nottingham Forest never won any form of Trophy whilst wearing this kit. 

Make & Sponsor: Forest's strip was made by Umbro and Labatt's (Canadian Brewers) sponsored them. The kit itself is very accurate but one mistake made was the red trim at the base of the shorts. This was supposed to stop where the red horizontal line meets the black vertical line, however Corinthian continued this all around the back of the shorts. Aside from this it's very accurate. Rather than paint the two thin white lines above and below the Labatt's logo (which was actually part of the kit), Corinthian decided to make this small detail part of the tampo print (something that should have been later removed for the 96/97 strip). The colours used were a very close match to actual kit.
Rating: 9/10

Pack Releases:
Single Blisters: Bryan Roy, Steve Stone & Mark Crossley
4 Packs: N/A
12 Pack: N/A