Calderwood admitted: "Everyone - not only our fans - expects Forest to waltz through the division and you have to confront and deal with that kind of expectancy.
"Every time we had a setback, questions were asked of myself and the players, but I knew that was the kind of challenge I was taking on when I got the job.
"So when you make mistakes and lose a match you have to accept you're going to take some criticism until you get the chance to put it right. That's what we've done.
"When we lost to Doncaster at the end of March following a horrible performance we were 11 points behind Carlisle and they'd played a game less! 'But I still believed we could do it because of the group of players we have here."