Nicky Forster: The challenges of being Brentford player-manager | OneFootball

Nicky Forster’s breakout season in the Third Division at Gillingham in 1993/94 brought interest from above. The 21-year-old had scored 18 goals in a side that had stayed in the Football League by a four-point margin and was hot property.

Ex-England international Peter Shilton wanted him at Plymouth, as did a host of other clubs, but once his agent - the cigar-chomping Eric ‘Monster Monster’ Hall - presented the opportunity to him, his mind was made up.

“It clicked from day one and it just felt right,” he says. “But the Gillingham fans, wherever I went, were pretty unhappy because they wanted me to stay. I was even booed in a testimonial once!”

His decision was rapidly vindicated. He scored twice on his league debut - ironically against Plymouth - and had 14 goals by New Year’s Eve, helped by one of the great Brentford strike partnerships between himself and Bob Taylor. Between them, the pair scored 51 goals in all competitions that season.

“We were good friends, though there was - from my point of view - an unspoken competition,” Forster explains.

“I've always been driven by metrics, personally and then professionally, in an environment where I'll compete with someone. I'm a driven individual. The relationship was really good and there was healthy competition.

“Bob was a far better footballer than I was, it’s fair to say, and his finishing ability was just second-to-none. He didn't need that extra yard of pace, whereas I needed maybe two or three chances in a game to score a goal. He just needed one good chance and he'd score.

“Bob - along with Brentford’s nemesis Jamie Cureton - was one of the best finishers I ever came across. He was deceptively good in the air and I could just gamble off him, knowing he was going to win a large percentage of his balls.

“We had two really good wingers that remained fit for the majority of that season in Lee Harvey and Paul Stephenson and, every time they got the ball, I knew, seven or eight times out of 10, that ball was coming into the box. Somehow, they would work a yard so I could just focus on my run.

“We knew there was going to be a supply and we weren't disappointed much. I reckon they probably got in four crosses on average each half from each side. That's 16 in a game. If we got our runs right, we'd be effective.”

Under boss David Webb, Brentford lost only three league games between 20 November 1994 and the final day on 6 May 1995. One of those was against eventual champions Birmingham in the third-to-last game, with one point from their final three games meaning they missed out on top spot by four points.

The foundation of the Premiership brought a restructure of the Football League and so only one team was promoted to the First Division automatically. “Any other year we would have got promoted,” says Forster. “It was scandalous!

“It really hurt to lose in the play-offs. I'd had disappointments through injury, but that was my first big, ‘Oh my God, I didn't see it coming’ moment. I just thought, over two games, we would beat Huddersfield.

“I couldn’t see us losing. I thought we’d beat them under the lights of Griffin Park, with a charged atmosphere. I drove in thinking, ‘This is going to be a great night’. I was surprised it went to penalties and… I was absolutely gutted.”

A career-best 26-goal haul - and the impressive feat of having started all 46 league games - brought deserved summer attention from Crystal Palace, who had just been relegated from the Premiership.

“That was the first time media attention and transfer talk got the better of me,” Forster states. “The thing with footballers is they know what's going on behind the scenes.

“I found out Palace put a bid in but the club turned it down. Palace upped the bid and Brentford turned it down; Palace upped the bid again and Brentford turned it down!

“I knew they were buying a tall centre-forward and they were doing a deal with Gareth Taylor (now-Manchester City Women head coach). I thought he was perfect for me, so I thought it was the right time to step up again.

“Brentford rejected it one too many times and Palace ended up buying Dougie Freedman, which turned into an unbelievable deal for them.

“I thought that could have worked for everyone, but it just didn't materialise.”

With the hangover from promotion, injuries, and struggles in front of goal, from the little memory of 1995/96 - where Brentford finished 15th - Forster has, he labels it “a non-event”. Naturally, he says he found the breakdown of the summer move “distracting”.

It didn’t get much better the following year and the overriding memory is what led to his eventual exit on 31 January 1997.

“Later in my career, someone said to me: ‘You know the game, Foz - great game, s**t business’.

“That's the first time I had gone from being the main man to surplus to requirements. Though I scored 13 before I left, there was a period where I wasn't playing at all, wasn't even travelling.

“I’ll never forget speaking to Webby. I asked him why I couldn’t get in the team - and he said: ‘Because I think Carl Asaba’s a much better player than you’. That one was intended to hurt and did hurt.

“Birmingham came in for me and I remember him saying I could either go there, or I could come back and play in the reserves for the rest of my time at Brentford; ‘I don't care what you do, but you won't play in the first team’, he said.

“That was a great lesson because it showed the brutality of football. I thought I still was good enough - and I think my career beyond that proved that - but he just wanted to take the team a different way.

“The real question I should have asked was, if that was the reason, why didn't he let me go the year before? Why didn't he cash in last year when he had an offer twice as much?

“But I've seen Webby a couple of times since and I credit him for installing an element of resilience in me.”

Forster spent two full seasons at St Andrew’s, then went on to have great success with Reading and Brighton - scoring 118 goals across nine seasons combined - with time spent at Ipswich, Hull and Charlton, too.

When his Brighton contract expired in June 2010, he had two options: move to Wycombe or return to Brentford.

“Andy Scott contacted me and said he wanted to add experience. Originally, I wasn’t sure whether it was the right move, but I spoke to him and I thought, ‘You know what, this might work!’.

“But regardless of who I signed for, it wasn't the club, it was me that didn't feel quite right, and that was just probably an age thing. I just couldn't quite find my legs, couldn't quite find the form.

“I kept thinking it would come, but I just couldn't get it at Brentford the second time round and it's a real disappointment. I wasn't the old me and I think that's the point when people realise they’ve got a decision to make.

“Unfortunately, because of the turn of events where we weren't doing as well as we should have done, the decision was given to me via the fact that Andy lost his job.”

Forster managed 26 appearances in his second spell and scored his 48th and final goal for the club in a 1-1 draw against Exeter on 14 January 2011. Fifteen days later, he made what turned out to be the final appearance of his professional career as a late substitute in a defeat to Yeovil.

On 3 February, two days after a 4-1 humbling at Dagenham and Redbridge, Scott was sacked and Forster was installed as his interim replacement. Mark Warburton came in as his assistant.

“Mark and I got on really well,” he adds. “He was excellent and I learned a huge amount from him.

“I say assistant Mark probably did most of it - but he didn't have the credibility in terms of management or maybe in the dressing room at the time, so he came in underneath me. His training sessions were amazing.

“I do believe Richard Lee was the first choice to takeover, though. But I believe Andrew Mills, who was the chief executive at the time, was the one that said I was the oldest, the most experienced and should take it.”

Within the month, it was confirmed Forster would remain in charge after four wins and a draw in his first five games in charge in all competitions. That meant he would be the man to lead Brentford out at Wembley for the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy final on 3 April.

He smiles, seemingly at the memory of being able to do so after missing out on a place in the play-off final during his first spell as a player. Sadly, that’s not the case.

“I smile because that game has caused me so many sleepless nights and subsequent thoughts about what I would do if I did it again. Still, to this day, I’m not too sure where I am,” he says, frankly.

“There's no doubt that the lads that came in on loan - Adam Reed, Nathan Byrne, Jeff Schlupp - injected a new energy, a new pace, a new vibrancy.

“Those boys were the ones that were pivotal in that, in lifting the spirits and the moods and the results of the ones that had been there previously and weren't getting those results. Gary Alexander was scoring goals; Charlie MacDonald was scoring goals; Sammy Saunders was inspirational and getting deliveries into the box and making things happen. It was just excellent.

“So it left me with a massive challenge. Do I go into the final and play the ones that got us here or the ones that have created this huge chance? And do I be fair to Kevin O'Connor and Marcus Bean?

“Or do I choose the team that I think has the best chance of winning the game, which then gives me the best chance of securing success for the club, but also success for myself, for my family, in terms of a better chance of perhaps being given a role come the end of this year.

“It was a balance that I didn't like then, and I look back and I don't like now.

“I was honest enough to tell Kev before the day. I told Marcus on the day and he was in a really dark place. I've subsequently spoken to both of them and apologised because I probably would play them if I was given the choice now.

“Some fans will not forgive me, especially for Kevin O'Connor, but I did what I thought was the right thing at the time.”

Having won nine of his 21 games in charge, Forster applied for the full-time job at the end of the season. He had even spoken to former Brentford boss Steve Coppell about returning as a managerial mentor to him.

“In all honesty, I had no chance,” he concedes. “Warbs didn't get it and he probably had a much better chance of getting it than I did.”

Understandably, for more than one reason, Forster doesn’t look back on his second spell in TW8 as fondly as he does the first.

“Everyone asks who my favourite club was and, like a parent, I try not to have favourites but, if I had to, the favourite clubs would be Brentford, Brighton and Reading. They were the ones I had the best success with and where I played my best football.

“The first spell at Brentford was such a ride on the crest of a wave. We almost didn't know what we were doing and how we were doing it, but it was just working and it was just great to be part of.”