Our visit to Nottingham Forest’s fine stadium is tomorrow night, with a 7.45 kick-off.
You'll find the City Ground beside the river Trent about a mile and a half to the south of the city centre, and it's actually in West Bridgeford rather than Nottingham. If you're driving down from Leeds you need to come off the M1 at junction 26 and pick up the A610 Nuthall Road into Nottingham. Continue onto the A6514 Ring Road at Western Boulevard and turn right signposted Ring Road South, passing Queens Medical Centre. This road becomes the A52, and you can stay on it till you cross the Trent, and then take the A60 (Loughborough Road) towards the city centre. After just over a mile you need to turn right into Radcliffe Road (the A6520) and then left into Colwick Road for the ground.
There is a large car park at the ground, though it isn't cheap. The council operate a car park on match days on the Victoria Embankment. They charge £3 but it is only a two minute walk to the ground. The car park is right on the banks of the River Trent, on the ground side of the river, but on the other side of the dual carriageway from the ground'. Otherwise there is plenty of street parking available near to the ground, and the best bet is in one of the side streets off Loughborough Road.
The ground is 20mins walk from Nottingham railway station. As you come out of the main station entrance, turn left and then left again. Follow the road down to the dual carriageway and then turn right. At this point you will be able to see two sets of floodlights, but The City Ground is the more distant of the two, as you will pass Meadow Lane, home of Notts County, on the way. The ground is about 3/4 of a mile down the dual carriageway on the left, just over Trent Bridge.
Most of the pubs by the stadium are for home fans only, but in the past the Nottingham Rowing Club has admitted away fans though it remains to be seen whether they do so for our visit. In the city centre there are plenty of pubs around the market square, the best of them being 'The Pit and the Pendulum' and the 'Hogshead'. There is also the ‘Olde Trip To Jerusalem’ beneath the castle, which dates back to the 12th. century and claims to be England’s oldest pub. But one place you should avoid is the 'King John'.
Food-wise, there are plenty of takeaways along Radcliffe Road, which is the main road between the football and cricket grounds, though if you arrive by train you can also find a couple of fast food places if you turn right outside the main exit from the station. That is of course, if you don’t get rounded up for an escort straight to the ground.
The current capacity of the City Ground is 30,602, and the appearance of the ground was much improved when new stands were built at both ends in the early 1990s to comply with the Taylor Report. To the right of the away end is the Brian Clough Stand, which was built with the proceeds of Forest's European successes in the late 70s and early 80s, while the Main Stand to our left was built in 1968, after the previous stand burnt down during a game when the mighty Leeds were the visitors! The away fans are located in the Bridgford Stand, which replaced the former open terracing at this end (in which away fans used to get a couple of pens in the corner) and was opened at the start of the 1992/93 season. If you're wondering why the roof of this stand slopes down in a funny way at the end, it's because the road behind runs at an angle to the stand, so there wasn't room to continue the upper tier all the way into the corner.
Unfortunately it has occasionally been known for objects to be thrown down on away fans from Forest fans seated above, and there is also an element of Forest supporters in the 'A' Block of the Main Stand nearest to the away supporters who spend their time gesticulating at the away fans rather than watching the game. Another irritation is that the stewards usually keep asking fans to sit down if they stand up in the seated areas, as Leeds fans have been known to do at away games.
The facilities and refreshments are pretty good in this end because the stand is relatively new and beer and lager are available on the concourse, but the queue gets very big very quickly at half time. The burgers are pretty stodgy, and the tea is the same colour as the river Trent, but the pies are quite good. All this does of course come at the normal extortionate football ground prices.
For some years Forest have been unpopular with fans of other clubs for charging some of the highest prices in the Football League, though now we are of course challenging them for this particular honour!. Forest’s prices are £27 for adults, with senior citizens at £19, students and under 18s £14 and under 12s £7. The away allocation is up to 4,750 tickets, but we are very close to selling out for this game, with our official website saying that the ‘last few’ were remaining this morning.
The Club did have ambitious plans to move to a new stadium on the outskirts of Nottingham, but this would only have happened England had won the right to stage the 2018 World Cup, which sadly we didn’t. So this is on hold for the time being, although the club might look to refurbish the old main stand instead.