Nottingham Forest have a city at fever pitch as 23-year wait finally comes to an end

This is two days before Nottingham Forest host Premier League football for the first time in 23 years and the excitement levels in the city have reached fever pitch.

A queue of cars trying to get into the car park for the club shop stretches up a side street that leads to the ground. A member of staff, sweltering in Britain’s summer heatwave, has to turn them all away as the car park reached capacity at 10.30am.

The cafe has opened to meet the demand and there is a hive of activity as finishing touches are made to the exterior of the stadium before the visit of West Ham United tomorrow (Sunday).

For those expectant supporters who leave the club shop clutching their red bags adorned with the club crest, there is the unexpected bonus of seeing the first-team players drive past as they head to the ground for a training session on the City Ground pitch.

“There’s no doubt that for the Nottingham people this is a really important game,” Steve Cooper, the Forest head coach, says. “The fans deserve Sunday. They have been through all sorts, through thick and thin over the years and to be back on a high now being back in the Premier League, they deserve it.”

There will be some in the stands who have seen it all: the glory days under Brian Clough and the back-to-back European glories in 1979 and 1980, the relegations from the top flight in 1993 and 1999 and the three-season nadir in League One from 2006 to 2008.

For many, tomorrow (Sunday) will be their first chance of witnessing Forest as a top-flight club having been inspired by the fairytale created by Cooper and his team. The rise from the bottom of the Championship to the Premier League via the play-offs in May has captured the city and the buzz around the place has remained ever since.

“It’s just so positive and so lovely to see people around the city, everyone is so excited,” Andy Caddell, chair of the Nottingham Forest Supporters’ Trust says. “I hadn’t even realised my nextdoor neighbours used to go to Forest a lot and then they stopped going for one reason or another but now they’re wanting to go all the time. It’s been the most extraordinary and unexpected journey and Sunday will be really special, it will be absolutely bouncing.”

The excitement has spread. Seven-year-old Noah Grella has been in the shop to pick up his new shirt, having fallen in love with the team after watching the games at home with his mother, Amy.

“At the start of last season I thought we were going to get relegated,” she says. “I never thought I would see the day we would be back in the Premier League, I just thought I’d be supporting a Championship team for ever. When we came down here previously it was dead so I couldn’t believe how busy it was.”

The last time this famous old ground enjoyed top-flight football was on May 16, 1999, when Chris Bart-Williams struck to earn his already-relegated side a consolation victory over Forest’s fierce rivals Leicester City.

Dave Beasant, the former Wimbledon and England goalkeeper, had been a key member of the team that had won promotion 12 months before only for the club to sell their star striker Kevin Campbell to Trabzonspor for pounds 2.5million. Beasant, who was sitting on the bench during Forest’s last match in the top flight, is hopeful that a spending spree of more than pounds 100 million will enable Cooper’s team to survive this season.

“The good thing is this time around they seem to be doing it correctly,” Beasant, who went on to become Forest’s oldest player at 42, says. “When we got promoted the club sold our best assets and it had the obvious result.

“We had a team full of experience and fantastic players but unfortunately instead of investing they sold players and changed things. That was always going to create a downward spiral. We were losing players who had experience of playing in England and bringing in people without that experience.

“The problem was the money was spent on the wrong players. You have to be able to spend money and that’s what Steve Cooper has been able to do.”

Take a short walk across the river and you will find the Trent Navigation Inn on Meadow Lane where supporters sip their pre-match pints. The pub, which is a long-term fan favourite and was packed for last month’s pre-season friendly against neighbours Notts County, produces a special Forest Pale Ale in honour of the club.

It became so popular in the club’s run to the playoff final that they were taking requests to ship it all over the country for fans to celebrate.

“It is probably one of our most ordered drinks on a match day,” the manager Sam Ditchfield says.

That atmosphere is mainly down to the work of Cooper. Forest were bottom of the Championship when he took over in September last year. They missed out on automatic promotion but saw off Sheffield United and Huddersfield Town in the play-offs.

He is a manager who gets the club. He isn’t afraid of their history, instead embracing it by often going for coffee with club legends Garry Birtles, John McGovern and John Robertson. It will be a moment of pride for him when he walks out at the City Ground tomorrow (Sunday).

“I haven’t delivered it on my own. It’s been a real collective, a real togetherness in being back and that’s been inclusive of the supporters,” Cooper says. “It is going to be a brilliant day for the supporters, one that they’ve longed for for years and years and years and we’re all proud to be part of it.”

-The Times

Originally published as Nottingham Forest have a city at fever pitch as 23-year wait finally comes to an end