The Nottingham Forest trajectory over the last 15 years has been a rollercoaster.
Denied a Women’s Super League licence in 2011, cut adrift from the men’s club in 2014, brought fully into the Forest fold in 2019, promoted to WSL2 in 2025 and now fully professional, they’re currently fourth in the second tier under the charge of Carly Davies.
Formerly a player and a coach at Aston Villa, a coach at England under-19s and an assistant at West Bromwich Albion, Davies was appointed as Forest head coach in 2023. She has been honest that she waited to apply for a head coach role until she felt she was ready for it.
“I’ve always been somebody who wants to gain experiences before I throw myself into something,” she tells SheKicks.net. “I feel like I’m a person who has to work hard to be ready for these things. So that’s what I did.”
She adds: “I’m pleased with where we’re at. I’m pleased with where the group are at. It’s obviously a relatively new group, with 15 new players in the summer, which was probably a bigger rebuild than we initially thought we were going to do in year one. But we have a very ambitious owner of an ambitious club, I’m ambitious, and we want to be able to compete in this league and not just survive in it.
“At the moment, we’re enjoying the journey, and we just continue to keep going.”
Nottingham Forest: recruitment ahead of WSL2 journey
The first Nottingham Forest recruit in the summer was Scotland international Amy Rodgers, who has enjoyed spells with clubs including Liverpool, London City Lionesses and more recently Bristol City.
“Rodge is a very good player,” says Davies, who has worked with Rodgers when she was still in the England youth set-up. “She’s a very calm, collected individual, very professional, does everything to the 100th percentage of what she can, which is great as a coach and a manager.
“The main thing in this league is you need players that you’re going to get consistent performances from, and Amy’s definitely one of those.
“You need those players, particularly in the heart of your team. She was somebody that we had on our radar probably 12 months before promotion.”
Amy Rodgers’ injury “out of nowhere”
Rodgers’ move to Forest, though, was almost held up with a horrible injury she picked up on international duty in May – a broken jaw after what looked like a relatively innocuous contact.
“It came out of nowhere,” says Rodgers. “I get in far worse every day in training and games. The surgeon watched the [match] video, and he said it was one of the most innocuous jaw breaks he’s ever seen.
“It was very weird, but I felt lucky in the sense of it was right at the end of the season, I [only[ had to do one week of non-contact in pre-season.”
She jokes: “The pain and the surgery itself were obviously not ideal, but it wasn’t too bad – it was the food [that was the worst bit]! I wasn’t allowed to chew food for six weeks. I was on a liquid diet for a week, and that was the first week of my off season. I was on holiday in Spain and just drinking smoothies. I feel like the off -season you want to let loose a bit; like, have a burger and have some chocolate, eat whatever you want.
“But that was the week where I literally felt sick and just had to have soup and smoothies. That was honestly the worst part of it. But I’m a big foodie, so that’s probably being dramatic!”
Rodgers says it was a straightforward decision for her to join Forest.
“It seemed like they wanted to really follow the trend of the women’s game and invest and progress, but they also wanted to do it in the right way and in a sustainable way. They had Carly in, and I’d worked for her very briefly before, and once I spoke to her, I felt like she’d be a manager I wanted to work under.”
“WSL2 is one of the most competitive leagues in Europe”
That big round of recruitment presents its own challenges for a coach.
“If you look at the players that we’ve recruited, they’re all experienced players,” says Davies. “We’ve got players that have played in the WSL. We’ve got players who have just won the league with London City, players who have won the league previously with other clubs that they’ve been with, so we have the experience for players to play in this league and what it needs at this level.
“But any team that puts together 15 new players, and you’re trying to embed that in a league that is most competitive, and arguably one of the most competitive leagues in Europe, in my opinion, that’s going to take time. That doesn’t just happen overnight. They’ve got to get used to each other. They’ve got to build relationships. I have to build relationships with players as well, how they best learn, how I can best support them whilst we’re trying to win games of football.
“That’s no easy task, but I’m pleased with where we’re at.”
Amber Wildgust: The thought of playing at the City Ground was unattainable
Davies’ other key relationship is with Amber Wildgust, Forest’s head of women’s football. The pair had worked together previously at Aston Villa, and now at Forest the general split of responsibilites is that Davies deals with the day to day on the field, while Wildgust takes a more strategic and operational view.
A former Forest player herself, one of her proudest achievements during her time at the club has been securing the City Ground as the women’s regular home.
“To play all our games at the City Ground last year when we were tier three is a big deal,” Wildgust says.
“I do think it’s crazy. I think back to when I was playing for Forest, the thought of playing at the City Ground was unattainable, and we were playing at Carlton or playing at Gedling Miners Welfare.
“I think the day we play Arsenal at the City Ground, I’ll probably end up crying during Mull of Kintyre.”
