Nottingham Forest F.C. and also signed Stan Collymore, Lars Bohinen and Colin Cooper. Clark brought immediate return to the Premier League when the club finished Division One runners-up at the end of the 1993–94 season. Forest finished third in 1994–95 and qualified for the UEFA Cup – their first entry to European competition in the post-Heysel era. Collymore then transferred in the 1995-96 close season to Liverpool for a national record fee of £8.5million. Forest reached the 1995-96 UEFA Cup quarter-finals, the furthest an English team reached in UEFA competition that season. They finished ninth in the league. The 1996–97 season quickly became
Nottingham Forest F.C. 1–8 Manchester United F.C. had replaced Dave Bassett as Forest manager the previous month, and the United clash was to be his third match at the Forest helm. Before the match, the two teams had met 104 times in competitive matches, with Manchester United winning 47 and Nottingham Forest winning 33. The two teams had a similar record in the league, with Manchester United leading 43–29 in terms of wins. They also met in the 1992 Football League Cup Final, which Manchester United won 1–0 via a Brian McClair goal. Nottingham Forest's biggest home win against Manchester United came on 2 May 1990, when