Nottingham Forest spent the years before Steve Cooper arrived searching for lightning in a bottle.
There was failure in terms of results and failure in the transfer market as they bumbled along in the Championship, periodically challengers, periodically chumps for over 20 years. Then Cooper arrived soon after Dane Murphy and the strong financial backing of owner Evangelos Marinakis was harnessed. Years of going from manager to manager finally paid off.
Every fan knows what happened at Wembley after Cooper joined with the club on its knees. Promotion could not come soon enough for supporters but in a football sense it happened way ahead of schedule.
