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Forrest: We Thought We'd Try to Do What We Could as Volunteers
Monday, 4th May 2020 13:18

Former Blues keeper Craig Forrest has been doing his bit in the coronavirus pandemic as part of Conquer Covid-19, a grassroots volunteer organisation which has been helping to get PPE to healthcare workers throughout his native Canada.

Forrest, now 52, was with the Blues between 1984 and 1997, making 304 appearances. The Canadian international, who also played for Colchester, West Ham (loans) and Chelsea while in England, returned home after his playing days and has spent most of the intervening years working in the media.

“First of all I got involved in Conquer Covid-19 because there’s a gentleman called Sulemaan Ahmed and his wife Khadija Cajee, who are just terrific people that I’ve known for several years,” Forrest told Sky Sports.

“They get involved in anything for the better good. They’re just amazing people. I had the utmost trust in them and their belief in helping other people.

“And in this crisis, with the shortage of personal protection equipment that we’re seeing in the healthcare system - and I see that’s happening in the UK as well - we thought we could try to do what we could as civilians, as volunteers to take on donations and take this PPE equipment direct to source. No red tape, no crap, just get it done.

“And that’s basically what’s happened. We’ve about 100 volunteers in total, business people, celebrities some of them. Ryan Reynolds, the actor, has been incredible due to his reach on social media, the push has been terrific.

“These boring T-shirts have been terrific, we’ve been selling them by the thousand and 100 per cent of that money goes into buying the equipment at the cheapest price we could possibly find. We’ve got routes for that and then we’re getting it out there.

“We’ve done deliveries, Volvo have been excellent, they’ve given us a fleet of cars, gas and insurance to distribute this stuff. Other companies have stood up to help as well, and then volunteers just go out and fire it off and get this direct to source.

“We’ve delivered I believe to 40 different cities in Canada so far. We’ve had 100,000 donations of various things, from companies or someone just pulling up and wanting to give us a pair of gloves. Anything like that, the response has been amazing and it’s grown so quickly.

“We’ve talked about it and we want to influence other people to do the same. If you can’t help with this, you can go out and maybe help buy groceries for an elderly person, just do something to help. That’s really what we’re doing and trying to encourage other people to do the same.”

He added: “This is a very interesting situation that we find ourselves in, we’ve never been here before and you’re seeing the very best and some of the very worst in people.

“But the vast majority is good and we strive for that. That has been excellent. I’ve seen all the videos and the responses from the healthcare workers in the UK, obviously I lived half my adult life in the UK, I know the NHS well.

“One thing we have both in Canada and England is that our healthcare systems are national treasures. They’re something we can never get rid of in my opinion and we’ve got to do what we can to protect them because overall, in the UK as well, they’re underfunded, Canada is underfunded and I believe our medical people feel under-appreciated.

“And that’s got to change, so we need to support them more, be better prepared if this ever happens again, and it will to a certain extent as we’re seeing more of these coronaviruses popping up.

“We just have to do what we have to do to protect these people that do amazing work and they truly are the heroes.

“And it’s not just them, it’s the shelters, it’s the police officers, it’s the firemen, the grocery store workers, it’s everybody that needs to be protected properly and we need to do a better job at that.”

Forrest has been among a number of sportspeople working on the project, which he says has allowed them to use attributes developed in their careers.

“From a footballer’s perspective, I feel useless for the most part in a situation like this,” he reflected. “But what we do learn is teamwork and how to deliver on that work as a team and be better prepared for that.

“And also football players generally, we come from working class backgrounds, we might not be the most educated lot but we certainly have beliefs and knowledge about some social issues and I think that has helped with a lot of players and a lot of clubs who have done some amazing things for the better good.

“Everybody has got involved. Hayley Wickenheiser is a famous hockey player here in Canada, she has a great following. She uses her platform to the very best, she knows her brand, she knows how to do that very well and she’s a brilliant person, a great leader, she’s led from the front.

“Sulemaan knew that he needed some celebrities to give this some clout. She’s done that incredibly well.

“We’ve had hockey, baseball, basketball, NBA players from the Toronto Raptors, the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Vancouver Whitecaps have done an amazing job on the West Coast with the community there, unlike any of the professional outlets in that city.


“Football has played a major part and, like I say, I think we have an understanding of social issues and we try to do what we can.”

As well as sports people, actor Ryan Reynolds has played a major role: “Ryan Reynolds is a class guy, a typical Canadian, very humble, he wanted to help out and he’s been excellent for us, just because of the massive reach that he has and the comedy and lightheartedness that he brings to his videos for us is just been fantastic.

“He started the ‘boring T-shirt’ thing because you can only buy them in black, the print is white, you can get all three choices but it always comes in black.”

Forrest says debates regarding a return to sporting action are currently taking place in Canada as they are here.

“Absolutely, every sport. We’ve seen that happen with the NBA, they’ve been talking about it, the National Hockey League, they’re all trying to find out ways,” he continued.

“In Canada we started our Canadian Premier League soccer league last year, so this is only the second year. The difference between them and the NBA or the NHL or Major League Baseball is that they rely heavily on the attendance. These other sports can rely on the TV money, they can play at empty stadiums if they want to and still be fine and survive through this.

“You’ve got these different levels of financial clout from these different leagues and they’re all on different levels of playing field.

“It’s a really difficult situation but the only thing I can say is that until we get to grip with testing and we get to grip with making sure that our healthcare workers have this equipment, I don’t think we can even think about coming back to filling stadiums again for the time being. Nobody wants to deliver that news but it’s going to be some time before we see that.

“But it is important for people, football and sports is incredibly important to people, maybe more so than we thought, just for the entertainment and getting out and enjoying the day. It’s just incredible how important that is to people’s lives and what they put into their football clubs.

“That is brilliant in itself and we hope that comes back as soon as possible so people can get back to some normality, and football plays a massive part in that.”

Does he believe Conquer Covid-19 are fighting a winning battle? “That’s a good question, I wish at this point we could moonwalk back out of here and have all this stuff supplied by the government and were getting ahead of ourselves. Unfortunately that’s not the case, we seem to be getting busier.

“What we’re doing isn’t sustainable, there’s 100 volunteers and we’ve had thousands wanting to volunteer as well. Everybody’s doing this out the the goodness of their hearts, pushing for the better good, there’s nobody making anything from this, it’s just purely civilians doing it and it’s wonderful but it’s not sustainable, so we hope that the government can pick up the slack sooner rather than later and we can backtrack and maybe go into hibernation.

“And if there’s a second wave and we need to come back out of hibernation and start up another campaign, we’re willing to do that as well.”

Forrest has fond memories of his time with the Blues, particularly the Second Division title season with the final-day Brighton game where he and his team-mates were handed the trophy 28 years ago on Saturday.

“I remember like it was yesterday,” he said. “That whole run, the season and the relief of actually finally winning the league against Oxford and then having a really good day out on the last day of the season against Brighton where we could just celebrate and enjoy the season.

“I can remember it like yesterday, every single moment of that. It was a special time in my like, for sure.”

Perhaps inevitably many fans outside Ipswich mainly remember Forrest as the keeper who conceded nine goals at Old Trafford in March 1995 as the Blues were relegated back to the second tier.

Forrest, who was involved in Town sides which drew away against the Red Devils in the previous two seasons, keeping a clean sheet in 1993/94’s 0-0 stalemate, says it doesn’t particularly get to him these days.

"“Nobody remembers the games where you got points at Old Trafford!” he said. “It used to bother me a lot more, it doesn’t bother me really a lot now and quite honestly this many years after, if I didn’t lose 9-0 probably nobody would remember who I was.

“I get a call once in a while, usually on the anniversary of the 9-0 and people want to talk about it, and that’s OK too. Football’s up and down, it’s very much like life and you have to deal with those ups and downs, as a goalkeeper especially.”

He says he made a conscious decision to speak to the media immediately after that game: “I did. First of all I thought it was 10-0, I didn’t think it was nine, so I actually felt quite pleased that it didn’t hit double digits because I walked off the pitch thinking it was 10-0, that was never great.

“But I thought I might as well face up to it, it’s always easy talking to the media when things are going well. When things aren’t going well or didn’t go well and you’ve just had an absolute nightmare, you might as well face up to it and deal with it, and people would hopefully respect that.

“But it was a difficult situation for me to walk into that press room after being absolutely crushed by Manchester United.”

While he thought it was 10 when he left the field, Forrest contends that it really should have been eight with Paul Ince allowed to score a freekick before he had retreated to his goal after being booked.

“That’s right! Graham Poll, he got a little excited, I thought that he was quite enjoying the day out,” the Vancouver native recalled. “He had the best seat in the house for most of it.

“Yes, there were a couple of decisions there that were kind of odd and I always say it should have been eight because I think he should have allowed me to get back in my goal before the chipped it into the empty net.”

Earlier that season, Town had beaten United 3-2 at Portman Road, does he think there was an element of revenge for that at Old Trafford?

“Maybe. I believe that might have been Paul Scholes’s first goal for United. That was a great day at Portman Road when we beat them 3-2 and if we had picked up three points from everybody else that season we wouldn’t have been relegated. Forget about the 9-0, we still picked up three points against Manchester United.

“They were chasing goal difference on Blackburn. Not only did they want to pick up the three points, normally when you’re four or five-nil up you don’t want to pick up injuries, you’ve got the three points, play the game out, perfect.

“But they were chasing goal difference, so it was wave after wave, they were told to keep coming and scoring, Alex Ferguson was pushing them forward. That was a case that was a little bit different.

“So if you get in a position like that, if Man City or Liverpool at any time want to score 10 goals, there are moments when they certainly could. Will they? One day we will definitely see it.”

He added: “Playing in the Premier League for Ipswich Town was a dream come true for me. When I joined in 1984, Ipswich was coming straight out of that golden generation, obviously they won the league in 1962, but the 1978 FA Cup final and the UEFA Cup when it really meant something in 1981.

“When I joined in 1984 it was the pinnacle, it was one of the greatest clubs in Europe at that time, and it was just such a small place.

“When they were relegated when I was a youth player, my goal was first to make the first team and then to get them back into the top flight where we felt they deserved to be.

“And nobody actually deserves to be there, you have to work your way and work very hard to get there and staying there is also an incredibly difficult thing for a club with not a lot of resources and a small squad of players.

“I played with Johnny Wark, one of my absolute favourite people in the whole world, what a player he was.

“And even when he was playing in the Premier League later on in his career, well into his thirties, he went from further up the field slowly coming back to centre-back.

“Just incredible ability and skill and leadership and entertainment, a character. Absolutely fantastic.”

In October last year, Southampton were beaten 9-0 by Leicester and Forrest says he was soon made aware that it was looking possible that a new heaviest defeat record might be on the cards.

“Like always when there’s a game when it’s 4-0, 5-0 and it’s early on it’s like the 9-0 watch I get comments on social media, so I end up seeing this that there was something going on at Southampton” he said.

“By the time I put the game on, the ninth goal went in and I didn’t know whether it was a replay or what was going and then I saw that there had been nine goals and the phone began to ring and I started doing interviews about that and what my feelings were on it.

“I don’t ever want to see any goalkeeper get beaten like that, but I’ve got to say that has to be a worse result, losing at home 9-0 than losing 9-0 at Manchester United.”

The unfortunate keeper on that occasion was Angus Gunn, son of Norwich’s Bryan, who Forrest remembers well.

“That little bobble over his foot!” he recalled. “Angus has done a really good job and he’s a good goalkeeper.

“Bryan Gunn was a great goalkeeper for Scotland and also Norwich, I remember him very well, I have fond memories of playing against Norwich.

“I certainly discovered when I came over as a young lad in 1984 that you have to understand the hate for one another, Norwich-Ipswich.

“I actually went to the Milk Cup semi-final, Ipswich-Norwich, in 1985, Steve Bruce was playing for Norwich, I went with the fans, stood in the end zone at Carrow Road and felt ‘Man oh man, this is really what I want to do, I want to be on that pitch one day playing’ because it was just electric.

“It was an atmosphere that was so tangible and something I’ve never, ever seen in North American sports, it was that much different.”


Photos: Action Images/Craig Forrest



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readtheleaguetable added 13:52 - May 4
Thanks for that. Great article about Craig. He was a great servant for Town and his post-playing career in broadcasting in Canada has been stellar. He is a very respected figure in the game and in society.
As I live in Canada, I am very interested in donating to this “Conquer Covid-19” charity (although I think I'll let them keep the boring shirt.) Did he provide any contact info for donations ?
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PhilTWTD added 14:09 - May 4
The website is here: https://www.conquercovid19.ca/
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Alan_Handsome added 14:12 - May 4
As a child, I remember so clearly watching Forrest...his high pitched canadian accent "keiipurs" when coming for a ball. His goal kicks used to go as high as they did long. happy days. Those keeprs jerseys were brilliant as well.
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readtheleaguetable added 15:00 - May 4
Thanks Phil
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