Doncaster, who started the day bottom of the Coca-Cola Championship, raced into a three-goal lead by half-time thanks to goals from Paul Heffernan, Martin Woods and Richard Wellens.

Heffernan's second gave Rovers a four-goal lead before Forest pulled two late goals back from Joe Garner and a Sam Hird own goal.

Forest chief executive Mark Arthur said: "We're grateful to Colin for his efforts over the last two-and-a-half years, in particular for leading us to promotion from League One.

"But we're in a results business and it's imperative that the club stays in the Championship.

"We need to give ourselves every opportunity to do that."

Calderwood had earlier remarked: "It was probably our worst performance of the season."

Wolves maintained their seven-point lead at the top of the table despite being held to a 1-1 draw by Sheffield United side at Molineux.

Mick McCarthy's side had dropped only five points at home before today and got off to a good start when Neill Collins headed a Michael Kightly cross past stand-in goalkeeper Ian Bennett after 19 minutes.

United pulled themselves level three minutes later through James Beattie who tapped home from close range.

United looked confident in the second half and had chances to register their sixth away win of the season.

Reading goalkeeper Adam Federici capped a hectic last few minutes by scoring the Royals' equaliser in their 1-1 home draw with Cardiff.

Both sides were frustrated in their attempts to break the deadlock until the 89th minute when Michael Chopra scored from close range.

The away side looked set to take all three points until Federici came up for a corner four minutes into stoppage-time and smashed Stephen Hunt's cross past opposite number Peter Enckelman.

Birmingham remained third, behind Reading, with a 1-0 win over Ipswich at Portman Road.

James McFadden hit his fourth of the season from the penalty spot after 39 minutes following a handball by Ipswich defender Moritz Volz, putting Alex McLeish's side level on points with second-placed Reading.

Crystal Palace moved into sixth after a 3-1 win over Norwich at Selhurst Park.

Norwich veteran Gary Doherty replied to Jose Fonte's opener before Fonte scored again to put Palace ahead.

Danny Butterfield then struck an 18-yard volley past David Marshall to put the result beyond doubt late on.

Nicky Maynard scored twice as Bristol City registered a 4-2 win over Watford at Vicarage Road.

Maynard took just 23 seconds to break the deadlock and then doubled the visitors' lead on the half hour.

Grzegorz Rasiak pulled one back for Watford before Marvin Elliott restored City's three-goal cushion.

Elliott then scored an own goal to give Watford a glimmer of hope before Dele Adebola's injury-time strike eased the away fans' nerves.

Chris McCann's own goal gave Barnsley a surprise 2-1 win over Burnley at Turf Moor.

McCann had cancelled out Jamie Cureton's opener but put the ball in his own net from 12 yards to give the Tykes their third away win of the season.

Charlton dropped to the foot of the table despite twice coming from behind to draw 2-2 with QPR.

Nick Bailey scored both for the Addicks while Dexter Blackstock and Lee Cook notched for Paulo Sousa's side.

Rory Fallon and Luke Summerfield were both on target for Plymouth as manager Paul Sturrock came back to haunt old club Southampton with a 2-0 win at Home Park.

Bartosz Slusarski's second-half equaliser denied Tony Parkes a win in his first game as caretaker manager of Blackpool against Sheffield Wednesday at Hillsborough.

Sean St Ledger and Jon Parkin struck to help Preston beat Derby 2-0 at Deepdale, while Swansea and Coventry played out a goalless draw at the Liberty Stadium.