THE CITY GROUND — OUR FOREVER HOME OR NOT?

Just a few months ago, the Nottingham Forest chairman called The City Ground “our forever home”, yet now the owner is talking about moving to a new stadium. As Peter Blackburn argues, the club is more than a business — and the ground is more than just an emotional tie

STAND UP FOR THE CITY GROUND

STAND UP FOR THE CITY GROUND
But on Saturday it was different. It was — in some ways — even more special. Amid glorious sunshine, and the freedom of results elsewhere, the City Ground became a powerful place of worship once again.

It began with a dispiritingly poorly received burst of “F**k off Toton” which erupted from me as I surveyed the surrounds and all my Forest memories flooded back. Overwhelmed with Proustian reflection I couldn’t not shout something — even if it was just screaming into a void. Two others joined in. It wasn’t the most dignified of moments, but emotions aren’t always cultivated and preened — sometimes they are raw, even embarrassing.

But minutes later, more composed and thoughtful choirs had the crowd up on their feet. “Stand up for the City Ground,” rang out. It was joined by other chants, similarly uncompromising to my brief outburst, describing a potential stadium move and the proposed location for that move.

It was magic.

We’ve heard so much about the Rebel City in recent months but this was it — the real Rebel City. This was us channelling the brilliant words from that Forza Garibaldi banner: ‘Whoever’s name’s above the door, whoever holds the key. They’ll never own my football club, it belongs to you and me.’

At the pub, after the game, I was as emotional as I had been when those chants rang out. I was torn between two nagging thoughts — tussling for primacy.

One voice said: “They can’t ignore that, can they?”

The other: “Perhaps this is the countdown now. How many more times will you feel the pride and the power of that place?”

Evangelos Marinakis’s intervention, via The Daily Mail/Mail Online, confirmed all of my worst fears.

After an undignified and dispiriting spate of public briefings and a largely one-sided blame game with the City Council, the truth was out, straight from the owner’s mouth. The custodians of the football club put on record their desire to find a new home — to remove one of the fundamental cornerstones of what this football club means to me and many others.

OUR FOREVER HOME

It feels hard to understand how so much has changed since then. It is perhaps even harder not to view the briefings and interviews through the gloom of bad faith. Blame aimed at the City Council appears somewhat superficial in the light of recent reports and arguments have now moved to profit and sustainability rules. A sense of greater honesty and transparency might have made this seem less like betrayal.

The football club would do well to remember that commercial revenues and corporate dreams can become nothing if the people who turn the field of play — wherever it is — into a place of worship are no longer with you. It’s much harder to ask companies to buy into a half-empty, silent, stadium. And it might one day hit us that a raucous City Ground in the most iconic spot in English football was actually a prime draw — among our best pitches — for brands and global audiences.

There may be good arguments for a move. Aside from some fans making fairly empty comments about how the game has moved on and that new rules mean this project is a necessity, those have not been made well at all yet. I would like to see those — and the football club would do well to move its energies from politics and sniping to proper, public, process if decisions about our future are being considered.

Once the arguments have been made, those of us with steadfast positions, and indeed those of us ready to be sympathetic, can make our own minds up.

This football club is much more than a business — it is a community institution and a deeply ingrained part of our lives. It is for all of us, not just whichever millionaire or billionaire is currently paying the wages of the players who wear the Garibaldi. We, the congregation, should be considered and heard. Both for the practical present and future of this football club, and because it is the right thing to do morally. This is our church. All of ours.

For me, engagement and transparency would have cleaned away the grubbiness and some of the sense of betrayal. It would — and will always — take significant convincing for me to feel comfortable parting with any of the special things that make us what we are. Our name, our badge, our home.

For custodians to actively consider and explore doing that is deeply challenging. For them to consider doing that through a move miles away from our spiritual home to a site which has few positives apart from space and would loom large over the Derbyshire border is even more hurtful. But for custodians to do so in private, shielded by excuses and blame, without the voice of the fans in their hearts and minds, is unconscionable.