Even Jürgen Klopp said that Steve Cooper deserved the manager of the season title, and it is impossible to argue otherwise after Nottingham Forest ended their 23-year absence from the top level with promotion to the Premier League on Sunday – albeit not without controversy.
Forest were bottom of the Championship when Cooper took over in September, but after an incredible run, they are back in the big time. Joe Worrall, the captain, led his comrades up the steps to the royal box while wearing a bucket hat borrowed from a spectator. Cooper leaned against the steel bars, exhaled deeply, and contemplated what must have been a spectacular vista, the air a Garibaldi-red haze from smoke bombs detonated in a pulsating Forest end.
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