Forest want trophies after 'astronomical progress'

Captain Lyndsey Harkin wants Nottingham Forest to turn the "astronomical progress" the club have made into silverware.

The Reds' first chance to collect a trophy this season comes on Saturday as they meet Stoke City in the Women's National League Cup final at Walsall's Bescot Stadium.

It could be the first piece of a league-and-cup double for Forest, who are five points clear at the top of the National League Northern Premier Division table with four matches remaining.

"We just have to keep pushing on," Harkin told BBC East Midlands Today.

"We have beaten Stoke twice in the league but we are not going to be complacent because we know a cup final brings different things. It's a nothing to lose sort of game, we have to go for it.

"We know they can play football, but so can we. They are aggressive, but so are we."

The Reds are yet to be beaten in the league and have won 15 of their 18 matches in the third tier since first moving towards full-time professionalism last summer.

Harkin is the club's longest serving player, having made more than 300 appearances for the side either side of a six-year spell with Doncaster Rovers Belles, where she featured in the Women's Super League.

Harkin has already captained Forest to a double, with the club clinching the National League Cup in 2023 before going on to win the league title.

That league success, however, did not bring automatic promotion, as it now does, and they went on to lose their promotion play-off final against Watford.

"The progress the club has made has been astronomical," Harkin said.

"With the players we have signed and where the club is at now, it's just amazing.

"The next step is that we want to get promoted."