Those two were a genuine PL-ready strike force, which is why they pissed all over defences at D1 level. PvH was entirely correct that with a couple of quality additions in summer 1998 (which was all it needed), we'd have been back to a comfortable mid-table side again.
Going up and losing PvH, Campbell and Cooper while replacing them with the likes of Darcheville, Shipperley, Freedman and Quashie was only ever going to end badly.
I always thought the strangest thing about that period was that the money from the Cooper and Campbell sales was actually reinvested, but blown on vastly inferior players (£2.5m for Campbell on Freedman Shipperly and the Darchville loan; £2.5m for Cooper on Quashie). Then, of course, having to make £1m available to BFR to sign Palmer, along with other futile sundry purchases.
It was just all so pointless - I could at least have understood it (without accepting it) if they'd simply aimed to maximise profit.
It's all a bit hazy now but wasn't the consensus at the time that Quashie was the next big thing and that we'd actually done a great deal in getting him to the club?
I think that was Scholar and Wrays plan - to jump on the bandwagon of clubs being floated on the stock exchange. Unfortunately that bubble burst before Forest were ready so we avoided that particular clusterfcuk.
Oh, they did float (on AIM) and, somewhere, I've got the share certificate to prove it. When ND took over he did it in a way that those shares became worthless.