A Nottingham Forest fan has shared how he is heading to Wembley with a 'heavy heart and a few tears' after losing his son shortly after the semi final match. Jordan Baker passed away on Saturday May 21 after suffering from epilepsy from the age of five. He said messages of support he had received from other Reds fans had been a great comfort.
Jordan, 28, was a huge Forest fan and the father and son had planned to go to the final together. He had suffered from mostly sleep seizures after he had meningitis as a child.
His dad, Barry Baker said: "He won’t be at the final, but with a very heavy heart I will be going. I’ve been ill with leukaemia the last 2 years and spent a lot of time having those ‘if we die’ conversations with Jordan. Although the odds were on me going first, we both agreed that no matter what, we still had to go to Forest even if it was the next day and if we could get a trip to Hooters before, even better.
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"I would so want him to go the final if I couldn’t and he would have insisted I go. I’m taking his scarf which I will put in his coffin and he will be wearing his Forest shirt when he’s laid to rest."
He added: "Jordan was a massive Forest fan, from the lows, Chester away and Yeovil at home was just two. To the highs of well, basically the whole of this since since Steve Cooper came in. The home semi final leg was probably the highest of those. If he couldn’t get to a game he would sit and listen to Colin Fray on the radio.
"Two weeks ago he saw Frank Clark in a coffee shop in West Bridgford, which is where Jordan lived. He text me that it had brightened up his day. He’d seen a few of the Forest players a couple of days either in the town, I’m not sure how much these people know what effect they have on us all, but they do."
Barry said: "Friday night he went to sleep and on Saturday he was not responding to my texts, which is very unusual, so I went to his flat and sadly found him on the floor, dead. This had been my worse fear for more than 15 years, every morning, opening his bedroom, hoping not to find him on the floor.
"I did sometimes, he always kept pillows there so he didn’t bang his head. It’s a horrible condition that there is no cure, medication can reduce the risk or the effect."
Barry has received messages from thousands of Forest fans who he has never met. He said: "It shows that we are a big enough club to count but a small enough club to care. I have lost count of the amount of tears I’ve shed just reading those messages.
"Forest and the City of Nottingham have been a massive part of his life and I will be for ever grateful to them for that. He had a brick on the 150 wall that reads Jordan Baker ‘A’ Block. He loved it there."
