FOREST AWAY: Burnley, Saturday 20th September – Fan Guide

A 3pm on a Saturday? What is this dark magic?!

We all know that traditions are dying fast in this game of ours, including the conventional mid-afternoon Saturday slot that we are so often deprived of these days. I hear the Premier League and the Football League every summer herald that even more games will be shown live across the upcoming season and I always think that the people who really matter in all of this, the match-going supporters, are likely not possessing the same joy at this news.

There could be a nice trade-off here, especially in the Premier League, where the volume of games shown could perhaps go hand in hand with a reduction in ticket prices or could help with reducing travel costs or putting on free coaches. I know that many of us aren’t likely to use club organised travel, but I’d certainly take some solace in some fans getting the benefit of this. Or something else like kids or senior citizens getting discounted tickets.

I realise I am barking into the wind with all this, but it really doesn’t sound so mad, does it?

Another tradition we are now losing this season is the loss of the physical match ticket. Clubs have voted to bring in digital tickets from 2026/27; they will have their reasons for this and while they will dress it up as stopping touts and preventing fraud, what it’s really about is making more money, I suspect. The resale options available to clubs where they buy your ticket back and then sell it again for a higher price is one clear reason why digital ticketing works so well for them.

Does it matter that we now have our tickets on our phones rather than physically in our hands? Maybe eventually we will just grow accustomed to it, like watching football on a Monday night or not being able to have a lid of your bottle of pop, but I’m quite sad about it really. I loved collecting tickets, I had started to compile them all into photo albums with little notes on the game, mainly memories of great days out with friends. They were nice keepsakes, little physical reminders of bygone days of the good and bad variety.

Physical tickets also gave someone like me a little less anxiety on the day of a game. It was reassuring to look into my wallet and see my ticket there and know, with almost near certainty, that ticket was getting me through the turnstile. As I say, it’s early days but I can’t deny I approach the entrance these days with a degree of apprehension. At Palace plenty of people were being turned away as theirs were not working; they were instead directed to a gate where someone was manually checking them in. And then last week at Arsenal a friend downloaded his ticket on the day of the game only to receive an error message. He eventually made it inside the Emirates 15 minutes into the match. At Swansea, I’d say approximately half the queue I was in were initially denied entry before having to have their ticket manually scanned by a staff member who then told us to scan back in at the turnstile reader. It crossed my mind too that it was daft we were all stood there with out phones getting soaked while we waited in the rain.

This isn’t all one way of course, a couple of seasons back at Fulham we dished out the physical tickets only to discover we were one short. A mad scramble followed to obtain another from someone which likely wouldn’t have been needed with a digital pass. Yet that was human error, it was in our ability to correct that. I don’t really know whether the digital scanner is going to like my barcode. At the Emirates, a very helpful steward almost pushed me through the turnstile as it only scanned on the third or fourth attempt and I hadn’t realised, nearly missing my little window to push through.

I’ll take some solace in Betis being a physical ticket but the issue of them for domestic games appears to be over. Forest suggested in the summer that certain away games would be trialled for digital tickets but so far it’s been all of them, including Swansea on Wednesday. But they are expected to finish officially in the Premier League at the end of the season.

Maybe it won’t matter all of that, this is very much a first world problem as they say, but I can’t help but think it’s another little symbol of the game just slipping away a touch more out of out hands. Quite literally.

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The Betis guide will be out as soon as possible after this game. It will definitely be out by Monday latest as I fly on the Tuesday afternoon. If anyone is on the 4:05pm from Gatwick to Seville then give me a shout!

 

AWAY DAY No.4: Burnley, Saturday 20^th September, 3pm KO

Last Visit: A memorable final day of the 2023/24 season when, despite some slight nerves, Forest survived with a 2-1 win against the team who could mathematically catch us. Burnley didn’t manage it, but they did return to the top flight with an impressive campaign in the Championship last season.

Famous Visit: I suppose the 2024 game would probably apply here above anything else I can think of, but to avoid the repetition I will plump for a really impressive game early on in the 2003/04 season under Paul Hart when we came away with a 3-0 victory on a week night. I believe it was Gareth Taylor’s first goal for Forest that night, one of a few signings made to replace the dismantled squad that had narrowly lost to Sheffield United in the play-offs the season prior.

Useful Information:

Forest fans will still be housed in the same end as previously, but we are now located on the other side of the stand. This will mean a new entrance point to access the ground; we no longer come down the main road past the stadium (Harry Potts Way) and instead will need to go past the cricket club on Belvedere Road.

Sunglasses / hat rating – we’re losing the sunshine pretty rapidly now but there is still the chance of a requirement here. 6/10.

 

TRAVEL

ROAD: I would imagine that for most of us, the route to Burnley will be head north from Manchester on the M66 which then becomes the A56. This leads onto the M65 which will drop you into the west of Burnley.

For parking, if you are able, I suggest you try and ditch the car before you get to Burnley town centre. From experience, parking options become limited and it starts to get a bit hectic as you are fairly close to Turf Moor by this point. I will caveat this with me not having gone in the car to Burnley for a good few years now, but when you come in off the M65 you will eventually reach a large roundabout. The first left leads you into the town centre but if you go straight over (second exit), you can skirt around the town and into what I recall was a sizeable residential area. Because of the time that has passed, I can’t say for sure this is still an option but if you aim roughly for Parliament Street / Burnley Wood area then I would hope you would find somewhere without having too far to walk to Turf Moor.

Alternatively, and I stress I’ve never tried this, stay on the M65 for a further junction and head in towards the ground from the north-west. Directly off the motorway are more residential areas which might offer a good option if you stay far enough away from the ground. I also have a hunch that this might prove an easier escape route back to the M65 afterwards but I don’t say this with any certainty.

Official advice on parking is as follows:

There are no specifically designed parking areas for travelling supporters; however, they are to be encourages to park on car parks off Centenary Way (charges apply) or close to the fire station on Queen Victoria Road where there is ample roadside parking at no charge. Both are only a short five-minute walk to the ground. Supporters should avoid displaying team colours in their vehicles.

There is also now additional parking at Townley Park on Todmorden Road (this may incur a charge).

The Burnley Cricket Club (see info in pub guide below) also offer plenty of parking on site and charge £8 per car. It’s very handily placed right next to the away end. It is cash only. Use BB10 4BN for your sat nav.

Away coaches will now park along Belvedere Road and not Harry Potts Way to cater for the new away section. Belvedere Road will otherwise be closed from one side but access will remain for fans on foot wanting to get access to the cricket club without having to walk all the way around. The image below from Burnley Cricket Club should help explain this. Coaches will no longer be able to access Yorkshire Street which is the road down to the ground onto Harry Potts Way so those of you travelling on coaches please make your coach companies and drivers aware, as they may be used to many years of doing the same route. 

PUBS

The cricket club by the ground is the designated away venue, and this will be handily placed for entrance via the new away turnstiles. For the final day of the 2023/24 season it was heaving. It’s a really nice venue with different bars and rooms, plus it serves decent good. If the weather is okay, fans can also make use of the small, seated terrace out front overlooking the cricket field and spill out onto the field itself. It did, however, get incredibly busy and within a couple of hours of kick-off it became very arduous to get to the bar.

Not far away is Burnley town centre which I always found was pretty good for pubs. There shouldn’t be many issues getting in to most places in town, with the Boot (a Wetherspoons) typically being the default secondary away pub option.

Many, many years ago while driving into Burnley we spotted a pub with a Kimberley Ales emblem logo on the roof. Having been raised just around the corner from the old brewery at Kimberley, we called in and found a really nice pub with decent beer and food. It’s called the Inn on the Wharf. It became a little tradition for us to start there either straight out of the car or off the train, and then we’d have a short 10-minute walk into town down the hill or a further direct walk of around 20-25 minutes to the ground. The pub is far enough out the way for it not to really get busy and we used to leave our car there and just walk back, missing most of the traffic on the way out.

It’s been a good while since I last visited so I can’t vouch for it now but it looks like it’s still open and might be a good alternative.

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With thanks to PC Simon Travell of Nottinghamshire Police for the information regarding the away end change and the new entrance layout, plus the official parking advice.

See you all there.

You Reds!

Matt