End Of The Road For Pemberton And The Reserves?

For several months now, the NFFC message boards have been filled with rumour and speculation about the scrapping of the reserve team set up and the future of reserve team manager John Pemberton. It’s widely believed that both have been axed, as part of Billy Davies’ restructuring of the club.

Today, Billy Davies told the official site, that when he joined in January, his first goal was to keep the club in the Championship and with that goal met, it was now time to implement the changes he felt neccessary to move the club forward.

Davies said. ‘I don’t think there was anything wrong when I joined Forest. There were lots of good things in place. All you want to do as a manager is stamp your own authority on certain things. What I’m doing with my staff is looking at many different aspects of this club – from the playing side, the dressing rooms, the training ground, what the players eat, drink and how they live on a day-to-day basis. There will be a huge amount of changes made because we want to do things differently.’

Of course this is still speculation and has yet to be confirmed by the club, but it does sound as though we’re being primed for some sweeping and far reaching changes. IF the reserves are scrapped, it will cause some discontent with fans, who saw Pemberton as one of the successful things about the club. He guided the reserves to the Pontins League title and won alot of respect with the way he had them playing. If rumours of their demise is true, fans will be looking for a decent reason why.

According to some sources, Davies would prefer the fringe/reserve players to be competing in more meaningful and competitive games. He doesn’t feel this is being achieved under the current regime. Whether that’s true or false, John Pemberton deserves our best wishes and hopes for the future. He was one of the best things to happen at NFFC in recent times and was responsible for helping some of the young talent we have at the club today.