I know Forest will give me one more set of shivers today

Nottingham Forest face Chelsea today desperate to end a remarkable Premier League campaign by sealing a place in the Champions League. European ­qualification is guaranteed but Chelsea have their own motivation to destroy the hopes of Forest supporters. Lifelong fan Peter Blackburn reflects on an ­extraordinary season and the moments that mean the most.

My three-year-old son, Robert, has started telling me that he loves me. It came out of the blue a few months ago – it was the most welcome stomach punch I’ve ever felt. Now, he tells me several times every day. But it never gets old. It still feels like the first time, every time.

Some things in life are just that special. Each time he says those words I feel shivers down my spine. I hug him tightly, reply in kind, and then take a deep breath to feel the moment. I tell myself there are only so many times you will hear “I love you”. It’s not morbid – it’s a split-second to remember life is short but it is also beautiful. It is a reminder to lean into those shivers.

Being so present has been complicated – and only recently consistently realistic thanks to my GP’s intervention. I am amazed that something so small, a minuscule antidepressant each morning, can do so much, but being able to enjoy time with my son – now happy, strong and healthy, but born weighing just 3lbs and in intensive care for the first weeks of his life – conclusively proves otherwise.

Some would find it churlish to relate parenthood to sport or art. Football fans are routinely patronised like that. But sport, like our personal relationships, becomes a part of our identities – and, so often, it is football that brings those shivers down the spine.

I felt them when the City Ground was a symphony of swirling scarves and songs against Sheffield United in our play-off semi-final in 2022, amid the relief and ecstasy following the Wembley victory to seal our Premier League return, and again when climbing the stairs into the Brian Clough Stand for our first home game back in the top tier. The remarkable rise of this Forest side has seen those shivers become regular. Most recently, they came when Brighton were put to the sword, when Callum Hudson-Odoi sank Manchester City, and when Anthony Elanga broke Manchester United hearts with a run and finish which we will tell tales about for decades.

They came again when it felt that the Champions League dream was over – only for Forest to draw and win at Palace and West Ham while struggling for form and the players looking exhausted by the workload, the pressure, and the burden of our hopes.

It still feels like yesterday that things were so different, with Forest a third-tier club. A season ticket was more a grim burden than a passport to joy. Those hard times are a kind of trauma that lives with us. Like Nick Hornby writes in Fever Pitch, we had fallen in love with the game with “no thought to the pain” it would bring.

But change comes fast in life and football. LP Hartley described the past as “a foreign country”. From a run of six wins in a row, where Forest transformed the absurd into reality, to an FA Cup semi-final, and a European shootout today, those hardships feel like another solar system.

The incredible results are a beautiful thing in themselves. But, most importantly, they are the bookmarks around which we build our memories. For us, football is an opportunity to lean into being human. The sport is always as much a story about our relationships with our loved ones as anything. It is the hugs, the waving limbs, the brotherhood when it all goes wrong. I think I have always known this, but the remarkable revelation of this season places everything in sharp focus.

Forest may not be favourites today, but, in the paraphrased words of Brian Clough, I hope nobody is stupid enough to write us off.

Regardless of the result, the final day of the season will be a celebration of this group of players and staff who have given us those shivers. And a celebration of our relationships with the loved ones with whom we share the mad journeys. After all, who knows how many more times you will hear “I love you”.