There is a revolution in Garibaldi red. Steve Cooper is trying to keep his feet on the ground. It might work with his players. It might already be too late for supporters.
The first title of Europe was won by the famous East Midlands club. They were last seen in the top division of English football. They are no longer just surviving in the Championship but thriving under Cooper.
Forest have won their last five league games. They will move to within three points of automatic promotion if they beat Luton Town on Friday lunchtime. They are doing it with confidence.
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Cooper tells Sky Sports that he wants to play a certain style of football. Those are difficult things to do in the game. Sometimes we get it right and other times we don't. That is football.
All but one of the others have gotten it right since the beginning of the year. All five of their wins have been by two goals or more. There have been no FA Cup quarter-finals in 26 years. The club has a 100 year old record for most consecutive league wins. The city is not dead.
David Marples is a columnist for the official matchday programme, the author of The History Boys: Thirty Iconic Forest Goals, and edits a Forest fanzine. He is enjoying it.
Marples told Sky Sports that he was still a bit confused as to how good he was. This has been the most enjoyable season of the century.
The competition for that has not been fierce. Since winning promotion in 2008, fourteen seasons have been spent in the Championship. It has been over a decade since Forest won the playoffs.
The club had its worst start to a season in over 100 years with six defeats. After being kept out of the City Ground, many wondered why they decided to come back.
Chris Hughton left in September and something strange began to happen within the squad that some had assumed was good enough to stay up. Joe talked about playing with freedom again. Steve Cooper won four in a row.
Everything has changed since he walked through the door.
Everything.
Cooper isn't fond of looking too far back or forwards. This is what he does. It is what has taken the forest to this point. He is focused on Luton until it is not. We are analyzing what will be needed for the next one. The process is what it is. Every game has a process.
Marples says that he has brought the very best out of and improved every single player. Player after player talks about their confidence being restored. You can't win without confidence. You can't be confident without winning.
How did he instill it?
Cooper says they try to be positive. You should give yourself the best chance when you do that. That is all it is. We try to embrace the situation that we are in, playing for a huge, famous football club, and doing the best we can.
The players were at rock bottom when he joined.
You can only judge what you see. Belief in people, positive attitudes is what you start with. At all times, we try to stick to that. It allows you to enjoy the good moments and gives you the best chance in rocky moments.
They can surprise you if you show belief in people.
I believe in that a lot. I have been a coach for 20 years and most of that has been in youth development where you teach young players to take the ball in difficult positions when they are under pressure.
You want them to be free, to be creative, to express themselves, to play with team-mates, all these sorts of things. That is what I believe. We are trying to do it at a more senior level. It is a bit different, but the principles are the same.
Since he took over, no team in the Championship has completed more dribbles. If that is dribbling, it's great because we have some good ball carriers.
It shows the freedom they play with. The talent is expressing itself. Marples says that the full-backs are encouraged to spend more time there than in their own half.
That right side has been a huge factor in Forest's success of late with the loan signing from Middlesbrough proving to be a revelation. Brennan Johnson is perhaps the outstanding young player in the Championship.
His partnership with Keinan Davis has made Forest even better. The only Championship game that Davis has not started is the one they lost, and he scored in that.
Cooper says that Keinan had never really had a run of games in a first-team environment. He has grown as the weeks have gone by, starting games in a busy period.
It has given him an opportunity to show what he can do and he has become a really important player for us. He is a good footballer and uses his strength well. He can run with the ball and score, but he can also find a pass.
If you look at the two goals we scored against Coventry, he plays the key pass to Jack Colback who ends up getting the assist for the cross, and he ends up getting the assist himself for Jimmy Garner's goal. He has added as well as a few goals.
We are enjoying him but at the same time pushing him to improve.
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That is the message from Cooper. Enjoy it but make it better.
Fans are wondering how far it will take them.
Cooper was asked by a journalist if he had thought about the previous play-off disappointments, which included losing out twice under Billy Davies and once before that.
Marples grew up with tales of European glory. Celtic played a famous game against the City Ground in the first game of his career. The spark is back after two decades of generally uneventful times for the club. The forest might be back.
There are more of them. Cooper has his own fist pump ritual after each home win, which is set off by fireworks just off Trent Bridge. We are all in, some of which sounds a bit cliché, but we are all in. Completely in.
Cooper is in a bubble. He doesn't like basking in the adulation of supporters aroundNottingham but he does like to watch the midweek action in the Champions League. He is aware of the excitement when pressed.
I don't go looking for it. I am paranoid about making sure we are in the best shape going forward, but I am focused on putting one game to bed and moving on to the next one. You are not doing your job if you start thinking outside of that. That is what I do.
The atmosphere from our supporters has been great. That has been very helpful. When you see a home game at the City Ground become a real gathering of the community, you feel a sense of pride.
A home game at the City Ground has a sense of belonging. You just want to give your best when you are a part of something like that. It is the least we can do. I am focused on not letting anyone down.
Cooper is steadfast in his refusal to discuss progress as if it is a foregone conclusion, aware that the job is not even close to being done, and that fear among the fans that this could be as good as it gets. The forest could fall short. The loan players could leave.
Marples says that the voice in his head worries.
Let us enjoy this forever and stop football now.
One person thinks that Cooper is just getting started.
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