I blame Manchester United – in part, at least – for the early demise to my blossoming career as a sports journalist. It’s a tale full of intrigue, with accusations of fraud and dodgy money-making. The saga would have sat comfortably in today’s Westminster world of law-bending and money for honours culture but this was back in the day. Right was right and wrong was wrong. Good and bad were clear as day and night. Or so we were told.

My first proper bike got nicked from outside our local Woolworth’s and I had to wait a couple of years (punishment for negligence, I think) for a replacement. That was a way-too-big, second (likely third) hand Raleigh racer with more gears than I could handle and a saddle as hard as a shell. But it got me to the City Ground. Specifically told by my parents not to venture beyond our Clifton estate before I got used to the bike, I was soon off through torrential rain until I turned back at Wilford, not because of the weather but the guilt. Disobedience and all that.

Soon after that aborted attempt, a photo in the Nottingham Evening Post had me set off again. It showed autograph-collecting boys (no girls) gathered around the back of the main stand waiting for players to emerge after training. That’s what I was after. A sunny day cycle later and I was there and so was a crowd.

Plenty of push and shove before any familiar face appeared and I had my bike to think about. Then a feeding frenzy as groups of our local heroes waved when we called and smartly made for their cars. Finally, after every other lad seemed to have collected at least one autograph, I got my chance and thrust my book up to Peter Grummitt, the goalkeeper.

Back home, knowing I’d get a scolding, I couldn’t help but show off the prized memento to my dad. Sharp words and then he conceded it was quite something. Grummitt’s signature: a page to itself. Elsewhere, lots of blank pages and the back ones full of family autographs, some of mates and some of neighbours. “I’ll ask your uncle Don if he could get you some more. He knows centre forward, Frank Wignall.” Uncle Don and auntie Joan were my godparents, though we only ever saw them for a freezing few summer days at Mablethorpe each year. I handed my book to Dad.

Weeks later, he produced that book with a double-page spread of autographs of every Forest player. “There you go! Now you need to write a letter of thanks to your uncle, perhaps to the club as well.” By the time I’d penned those, my pen was getting me into trouble at school. For weeks I’d been handwriting four-page football magazines for classmates. I’d profile a Forest player, write about our school team, make stuff up and do a page on Manchester United. My boyhood ‘love-in’ with United was coming to an end but they were popular in class. From a facsimile sheet of team autographs on official club paper that I’d sent off for the season before, I’d trace a signature, like Bobby Charlton, George Best or Denis Law, to sign off my gazette. I copied the whole thing out for as many as I could sell. And that was the problem!

Parents being called in to see the Headteacher was a big deal. Mine discovered I was flogging something on the premises without permission and handling money in class and making questionable claims about ‘authentic’ signatures which caused arguments amongst pupils. I’d also started receiving stolen money – news to me! – “from a boy who was supposedly selling your son’s magazines to his neighbours whilst at the same time stealing money left out for milk deliveries because he wanted to befriend your son”.

In my defence, I explained that I was only copying printed signatures of United because that’s all they’d sent me. I’d – naively – expected ‘real’ autographs. So (twisted childhood logic, this bit) there was no difference. Actually, mine were signed in proper handwriting. And I sometimes traced one of my Forest autographs for free and they were real!

None of this cut much ice with the Headteacher or my parents. I was reminded not to ‘spoil’ my last year in primary school after achieving so much, to apologise to the class teacher and to pass over any money I still had (none, as it had all gone on football cards) from the boy who was bank-rolling my enterprise. Needless to say, all of this put a stop to the Parker Publication.

I blamed United -then and to this day – for introducing me to the world of forgery and deception and for practising the dark art of equivocation. It’s like a birth-mark: there to stay. Any opportunity Forest have to avenge the injustice I felt is regarded with extra relish by me. Next team at the City Ground? Manchester United!

*Article provided by Stephen Parker (Nottingham Forest Correspondent).

*Main image @manutd the great sixties United team led out by Denis Law