A sharp left after that will take you to the Peter Taylor Stand, for many years simply known as the Main Stand, a structure that a charitable estate agent might call “lived in”. Or you could go straight on, past where Antonio’s Italian restaurant used to be, a dark but homely trattoria that served as a pseudo players’ canteen for years, host to celebrations, team bonding meals and even a place to take new signings. It’s both picturesque and “urban”, with the river at one end and tightly packed rows of terraced houses at the other, the classic sense of a ground being of its city (even though it’s technically not in the city of Nottingham, but in the borough of Rushcliffe), but also something you could feasibly put on a pleasant postcard.Īt the end of the bridge, you can either turn immediately left and walk along the banks of the river, past the guys selling pin badges and old programmes, past the rowing club’s old boathouse and to the Trent End, now steep and imposing with a giant Forest badge on the side, but formerly a one storey shed-like terrace over which balls would frequently be lost in the water. It looms over the river, and by extension the city behind it. From the bridge, the City Ground looks glorious in any weather. Equally, when it’s dark and shrouded by the mist rolling in from the Trent, it seems quietly mysterious and even foreboding. Glorious sunshine makes everything look better and when the light glistens off the river you can almost forget it’s a football ground for a moment. Down a side street is the Trent Navigation, a pub near enough to the ground to be a viable pre-game pint venue, just far enough away not to be unbearably busy every match day. As the road starts to curve to the left, you will start to see peeking over the top of the buildings another set of floodlights, or if it’s a night game their semi-distant glow from the other side of the Trent. To your left, the canal, and on the other side of that is Meadow Lane, Notts County’s rather boxy home. To your right, the Meadows, the occasionally quite spicy part of town where Wes Morgan grew up. If you start from the train station, you go past the Hicking Building, an old warehouse converted into nicely-appointed flats that, perhaps in some sort of amusing joke played on the residents by the developers, had the UK’s only branch of Hooters installed on the ground floor shortly after it was finished. And, since that bucket of sick is rarely colder than with Nottingham Forest, you learn to appreciate the walk even more. The walk to the City Ground, Nottingham, home of two-time European champions and many-time whatever the exact opposite of European champions is, is one of the great walks. It’s only once you get inside the ground and the game starts that the cold bucket of sick that is reality can frequently be thrown over your face. It’s the time you can feel your optimism growing, and although logic and sense will intrude on that a little, you can block it out while you’re still outside. The walk is full of hope, possibility and anticipation.
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