Nottingham Forest’s European Cup winners are planning to boycott the club’s 150th anniversary dinner and stay away from the official celebrations because of the “scandalous” prices that fans are being charged.

Colin Barrett and John Robertson, two of the players who helped Brian Clough’s team win two European Cups, have already decided not to attend the gala dinner in protest about what they regard as an unfair money-making exercise.

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Other players from the club’s glory years are expected to follow in what is threatening to be a hugely embarrassing way for Forest – whose first-ever game took place on 22 March 1866 – to end an anniversary year that currently has the club in 15th place in the Championship.

The club are charging up to £2,400 for a table of 10 to attend the event on 2 May, which will double up as an end-of-season awards dinner, with other packages priced at £1,800 and £1,200, and a limited number of individual tickets priced at £180.

“How can they justify those prices?” Barrett asked. “How can you justify celebrating 150 years of a club’s history and deciding to turn it into an elite night that prices out so many fans? The ticket prices are starting at £150 plus VAT and it is scandalous. Some businesses might buy these tickets but I would imagine this has wiped out 99.9% of the supporters.”

Barrett scored the goal that helped Forest knock Liverpool out of the European Cup and is a hugely popular figure among the club’s followers. He now plans to join supporters in a celebratory march they have organised themselves before the home game against Brentford on 2 April.

Robertson is widely recognised as the outstanding player in the club’s history, setting up the winning goal for Trevor Francis in the 1979 European Cup final and scoring the decisive goal when Clough’s team retained the trophy against Hamburg the following year. The former Scotland international supports Barrett’s views, first aired on the Notts TV show The Boot Room, and other players have already signalled they will follow suit.