FOREST AWAY: Manchester City, Wednesday 4th March – Fan Guide

I was sad to hear about the passing of Julie Pritchard recently. I didn’t know Julie particularly well but I had spoken to her numerous times, including out in Athens on the 2019 short pre-season tour, and she had joined us on previous boat trips and at the odd Forza Garibaldi event. I always found her knowledge on Forest to be incredible and her passion for the club was hard to match.

Julie was the architect of the Almighty Brian fanzine in the 1980s & 90s and I had also enjoyed her subsequent contributions to the Bandy & Shinty magazine. A couple of years back I had the pleasure of attending an evening in Nottingham where Julie, and fellow fanzine editors from across Forest and Notts County, were celebrated. Although the Brian was in circulation before I really started attending games I took the time to work through some old issues when they were made available online and they are a real treat. I am pretty sure Julie would take the opportunity to point to many others who contributed to its success but it was clear that it was her heart and soul that really brought it to life. Even reading many years later, I found those fanzines to be an extraordinary body of work and hearing from Julie herself on that evening about the dedication she poured into it, it was even more remarkable. What I believe was her final writing for Bandy & Shinty in their final issue was on the tragedy at Hillsborough in 1989, and it was a poignant, brilliantly written piece that encapsulated the horror and the sadness of that day.

I spoke to her once about how she followed Gibraltar (the international football side), making the effort to travel even to their away games as part of a tiny away support. I also saw recently a tribute from the musician Paul Heaton who knew Julie from her dedication to his former band, The Housemartins. Despite not knowing her too well, I always got the impression she threw herself into her passions with everything. That certainly appeared to be the case with her adoration for Nottingham Forest.

Speaking in a recent post on his Substack page about discovering the Almighty Brian, David Marples wrote, ‘But who were the people who wrote this stuff? These fantastical people, Julie being at the forefront, were pure punk.  Football punk. Without the Mohicans and safety pins, but with the big words. With the football knowledge. They did it all themselves too. They were sticking it to the man. And they seemed to know about good music too.’ Fanzines were part of a new movement that tried to wrestle back the culture of football from the violence and chastising it had experienced in the 1980s. I’m proud that Julie and her fellow writers made Forest fans a leading part of that scene.

I send my sympathies to Julie’s partner, Rob, and her family & friends.

 

AWAY DAY NO.22 – Manchester City, Wednesday 4^th March, 7:30pm KO

Last Visit: A meek 3-0 loss on a very, very wet December night. It remains a place we just haven’t been able to get a foothold in a game since promotion, and we all know this season we could really do with doing so. We haven’t even managed to score on out three visits since promotion, so hopefully that will change this time at least.

Memorable Visit: Based on our rather poor record at the Etihad it can only really the 3-0 win in the FA Cup in 2009. Goals from Robert Earnshaw, Nathan Tyson and Joe Garner made it a hell of a day.

Away End: Forest fans are split across three sections at one end of the stadium. I personally don’t like it much in the lower section given how narrow it is and, based on our recent visits, you have goading City fans hemming you in either side. I also much prefer upper tiers when available. Level 3 (the highest tier) seems to be the largest of the three sections.

Sunglasses / Hat Requirement: If this being played in daylight hours it might have been a fairly high in the lower section, but on a March evening I don’t think there will be much call for it. 1/10.

TRAVEL

RAIL: In a bizarre twist, the broadcasters have made it slightly better for Forest fans by shifting kick-off to 7:30pm. It makes reaching the 22:30 service back to Nottingham a bit more comfortable. There is a later 23:55 but I doubt many will fancy hanging around for that.

Outbound there is a fair bit to choose from. Services from Nottingham to Manchester Piccadilly as follows across Wednesday afternoon:

13:45 – arrives 15:35

13:53 – arrives 15:59 with a change at Stoke-on -Trent

14:45 – arrives 16:35

15:45 – arrives 17:35

16:45 – arrives 18:35

There are a couple of other services in amongst these that also change at Stoke, but there aren’t really worth it as they take a bit longer and are a bit more money.

A standard day return is £36.10. Just remember the usual advice about enquiring for a group saver ticket if in a group of 3 or 4. I believe these might only be available in person at the station but there could be an online deal too.

ROAD: I tried something a bit different last season that worked okay. I used the M1/ A628 (Woodhead Pass I think it’s called) via Penistone and Glossop and dropped in from the each of Manchester, avoiding too much of the city centre traffic or faff on the M60 ring road. It certainly wasn’t perfect, I still had to jump up a junction on the M60 but then darted in on Oldham Road and parked at a Holiday Inn (I should note this is current closed as it’s housing refugees / asylum seekers). It was a fair old way to the stadium from here, probably a half hour walk but it seemed better than getting much closer.

On the walk to the Etihad there was a decent amount of street parking between Oldham Road and where the Co-Op Live arena / Etihad are. Unfortunately I don’t have any specific streets but just looking at a map the streets directly south of the hotel are Grimshaw Lane and Lord North Street but I really don’t know if it was these exact streets that had the parking. I also think you could probably drive a little closer towards the stadium and cut down on your walk. A word of caution here that some of the streets round here didn’t exactly seem appealing places to leave your car, but I found in certain parts there was plenty of City fans parking up.

I’m afraid I don’t have any other specifics on parking. But my suggestion is don’t get too close to the stadium – it’s hard work before, and it’s even harder after the game. If your legs can stand it, get yourself parked as far away as you can and try and link in to a main road back to the M60. I seem to recall one year we parked somewhere just off the A635 (Old Ashton Road) and there are some residential areas off here but I don’t have anything further than that.

Alternatively, try and avoid driving towards the ground and consider something along the lines of one of these options. While realising that this isn’t ideal on a Wednesday night one of these options may work out easier and potentially even quicker:

~ Crewe – Trains from here to Manchester Piccadilly can be as quick as 34 minutes, although most are a little longer than that. There are about 4 trains an hour. After the match there is a 22:06 which takes 56 minutes and a 22:32 which takes 36 minutes, both arriving into Crewe just after 11pm. A return fare is around £16 but your car journey is cut right down.

~ Stockport – There are numerous trains every hour into Piccadilly and it’s only ten minutes or so travel time into Piccadilly. Afterwards, there are multiple trains between 10pm and 10:30pm so plenty of options. A return fare is around £7.

~ Altrincham Tram – Probably not as preferable as the above options but there are means of using the Manchester tram system. At worst, this will get you into Piccadilly and you could walk from there.

At all of the above, there will likely be a fee to park.

PUBS

Around Piccadilly there are plenty of really good options – the Waldorf, Piccadilly Tavern and the Crafty Pig spring instantly to mind. A little bit out of town the Swan Street area is really good with lots of good options and is a bit closer to the ground; around 25/30 minutes. Mackie Mayor is a big indoors street food place on this road with a bar included and around there are 2/3 decent options for a drink.

Clearly, many won’t be headed into the city centre before this one but there aren’t many clear drinking options around the ground for away fans. Official advice is generally to drink away from the stadium. However, in conjunction with the possible parking spot noted above off Oldham Road we did call in last season at the Bradford Inn, about 15-minutes’ walk from the stadium. There was few City fans in and a couple of Forest fans, but mainly it just seemed a bit of a local for people watching horse racing. But it did a job without having to walk too far from the Etihad.

***

To sign off, a small tribute to those embarking on some / all of these away games recently. Including trips to Braga and Istanbul it’s been a really hectic start to the year following Forest and we all know we haven’t had much reward, despite victories at Brentford and Fenerbahce. I hope somehow we all might get something for such dedication at City.

Safe travels.

Matt