Wimbledon 96-97: Corinthian officially released 9 players for Wimbledon. In total I counted 14 figures at first (this is including the masters). Considering 16 players was the standard I was struggling to understand where I had gone wrong as I was unable to locate the remaining two. However it occurred to me that both Warren Barton and John Scales were originally planned for Wimbledon as both master models exist with in the '94 kit. The unreleased masters were; Mick Harford, Gary Elkins, Andy Pearce, Jason Euell, Alan Reeves, Peter Fear and Kenny Cunningham. Andy Pearce actually has two Masters, one with his long hair, the second with short hair. His long haired version was supposed to be released for Sheffield Wednesday, he then had his hair trimmed so the alteration was made. Speaking of hair, Alan Reeves also underwent two changes from short blonde hair to slightly longer sandy brown hair. Pearce, Reeves, Harford and Cunningham came the closest to release, all being produced but not released. Gary Elkins left Wimbledon so didn't have his figure issued although his production did make it to the tool master stage. Peter Fear and Jason Euell complete the line-up, currently I have only seen Euell listed for the 96-97 season, so if you own this model then confirmation of his psychical model would be appreciated. 

To make up the 26 player squad I will be making 8 players, those players are; Carl Tiler, Bobby Howe, Tommy Wright, Chris Allen, Paul McGregor, Alan Fettis, Des Lyttle 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 96-97:

Premier League: 8th

FA Cup: Semi-Finals (3-0 aggregate loss to Chelsea)

League Cup: Semi-Finals (1-1 replay loss after extra time to Leicester City who go through on away goals)

Achievements: A really solid outing for Wimbledon who finished 8th in the Premier League. I'm sure Dons fans would have been very disappointed not to have come away with any silverware this season after reaching the Semi finals of both cup competitions, only being knocked out by Leicester who (after a 0-0 draw) won the match on an away goal after the goal finished 1-1 AET.

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: N/A

4 Packs: N/A

12 Pack: N/A