City Ground

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about Nottingham Forest's home stadium. For Cambridge City's home stadium, see City Ground, Cambridge.

The City Ground
Trentside

Full name	The City Ground
Location
Built	1898
Opened	1898
Owner
Tenants	Nottingham Forest Football Club
Capacity	30,602[1]
Field dimensions	115 x 78 yards

The City Ground is a football stadium in West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire, England, on the banks of the River Trent. It has been home to Nottingham Forest football club since 1898, and has a capacity of 30,602 .

The stadium was one of the venues for Euro 96, and is only three hundred yards away from Meadow Lane, home of Forest's neighbouring club Notts County; the two grounds are the closest in England.

It is the fifth largest stadium in The Championship, and the seventh largest club football ground outside the Premiership.

[edit] Brief history

Nottingham Forest moved to their new ground on September 3, 1898. In order to raise the £3,000 required to finance the move the club asked members, supporters and businessmen to subscribe to “New Ground Scheme” bearer bonds which cost £5 each. Over £2,000 was raised this way.

The new ground was called the City Ground. It was only a few hundred yards from the old Town Ground at the opposite end of Trent Bridge, which had been named after the Town Arms pub. Nottingham was granted its Charter as a City in 1897 and it was called the City Ground to commemorate this, in spite of the ground being ironically just outside the city. Meadow Lane lies opposite the City Ground, home of Notts County, which is ironically in the City limits. The ground was wide open on three sides with no protection from the weather but the pitch was one of the finest in the country. This was due to the presence on the committee of J. W. Bardill, a nurseryman whose family firm still exists near Nottingham and whose company was given the task of preparing the pitch.

In 1935 the club had the opportunity to buy the ground from Nottingham Corporation for £7,000 but it was not proceeded with.

On October 12, 1957 a new East Stand opened at the City Ground costing £40,000 and having benches to sit up to 2,500 fans. The visitors for the opening were Manchester United’s “Busby Babes”. A new record attendance of 47,804 saw United win 2-1 and the ball, signed by both teams, is still in the Trophy Room.

The Main Stand was largely rebuilt in 1965 but on August 24, 1968 fire broke out during a First Division game against Leeds United. The stand was subsequently burned to the ground but thankfully, despite a crowd of 31,126, there were no casualties. The fire started, probably in the dressing room area, just before half-time and, as much of it was built of wood, it spread rapidly and the whole stand went up in flames. As a result Forest played six ‘home’ matches at nearby Meadow Lane and did not win one of them. Sadly many of the club’s records, trophies, memorabilia etc were lost in the fire. The stand was rebuilt with a capacity of 5,708.

The Executive Stand was built in 1980 at a cost of £2 million—largely from proceeds of the unforgettable era in which Forest brought the European Cup back to Nottingham in 1979 and 1980. Under Clough’s reign Forest had taken the English domestic game and the European scene by storm and money raised from those outstanding successes was invested in a stand that had a capacity of 10,000. The stand was renamed The Brian Clough Stand after Clough's retirement, and was re-opened after refurbishment by the man himself in the mid-1990s. The stand also incorporates 36 executive boxes and a large dining area which was designed to be the focus of the club’s corporate hospitality arrangements.

More major development took part in 1992-93 with the rebuilding of the Bridgford Stand. Work started in April 1992 and when completed the Stand had a capacity of 7,710, the lower tier of 5,131 being allocated to away supporters. The unusual shape of the roof was a planning requirement to allow sunlight to reach houses in nearby Colwick Road. The Stand includes accommodation for 70 wheelchair supporters. It also houses a management suite, which includes the public address systems, computerised electronic scoreboard controls and the police matchday operation.

The Trent End was the most recent stand to be rebuilt—in time for Euro 96, the European Football Championships. The new stand, such a prominent landmark by the River Trent, held 7,338 to take the ground’s capacity to 30,576.

Although Forest fans are known to be demanding of their team, both in terms of playing style and passion, there is always a very good atmosphere at the City Ground, where most of the singing comes from the Capital One Corner and the A-Block of the Main Stand, the two closest areas to the away fans; but the Trent End can make a lot of noise too. Despite being in the third division of English football, the current average attendance of over 20,000 is more than four Premiership clubs and would be among the top 10 the Championship. The ground would be able to expand to up to 46,000 if ever there was ever a return to the top flight. On 20 June 2007, the Forest board announced plans for a possible relocation to a new 50,000-seat stadium in the city, though even if these plans do go ahead, the club's directors do not expect relocation to take place until at least 2014.

On July 6, 2005, the stadium hosted its first music concert when R.E.M. performed there and May 7, 2007 saw The City Ground host the FA Women's Cup Final between Arsenal L.F.C. and Charlton Athletic L.F.C. The attendance of 24,529 smashed the previous record attendance for the competition of 13,824 for the final between Arsenal L.F.C. and Fulham L.F.C. at Selhurst Park in 2001.

A few months later in June 2007, Nottingham Forest announced historic plans to leave the City Ground after more than 100 years. The plan is to move to a new purpose built stadium in the south of the city, which will form part of a new housing and leisure development near to the city's Clifton Estate. Although the plans are still preliminary, any such ground would seat 40,000–50,000 people and would be a potential venue should England win the right to host the 2018 FIFA World Cup. The ground would be served by the Nottingham Express Transit tram extension from the city centre, and would be within good access from the A453, a major road which links Nottingham with the M1 motorway.^{[citation needed]}

Plans to rebuild the City Ground's Main Stand (on the condition that Forest return to the Premier League) a plan which would make the ground up to around 40,000 capacity. However with this in mind the plans for a new ground came as quite a shock to fans, especially after just losing out on promotion to the Championship. Forest justified the new ground over the previously proposed City Ground Main Stand extension by suggesting that the current 'new' stands (Trent End, Brian Clough Stand, Bridgford Stand) are in a state which, 10 years down the line, would be money intensive on club funds. Much of the funding for the brand new stadium however would be from the private sector, primarily the construction company, and would as a result work out cheaper for Nottingham Forest.^{[citation needed]}

Fans views of the move have to date been somewhat mixed about a new stadium being built for Nottingham Forest because of their previous League One status. However it is the aim of Nottingham Forest to be back in the Premier League by the time the ground is built (2014).^{[citation needed]}

Early stadium names have even been suggested by some supporters, including the Brian Clough Arena, the New City Ground, City of Nottingham Stadium, and the Robin Hood Arena.^{[citation needed]}