Notts County stadium guide for visitors

Older than the rules

Notts County were founded in 1862 and formally organised on 7 December 1864. To put that in order: the Football Association was formed in 1863, professionalism was not legalised in England until 1885, and the Football League did not exist until 1888.

The club predates almost every institution in the sport it plays. It is the oldest professional football club anywhere, and it currently plays in the third tier of English football, which is the sort of sentence this series exists to write.

Why Juventus wear stripes

Notts County adopted black and white stripes in 1890.

At the end of 1901, an Englishman named John Savage, who was playing for Juventus in Turin, wanted new shirts for the club. He asked a Notts-supporting friend in England to send a set out. What arrived was black and white stripes, and Juventus have worn them ever since.

So the most recognisable kit in Italian football came out of Nottingham because one Englishman asked a friend for a favour. If you collect grounds for the stories attached to them, that one is worth the trip on its own.

Three hundred metres apart

Meadow Lane and Nottingham Forest's City Ground are separated by the River Trent and a short walk — the two closest professional football grounds in England.

The practical value is obvious. If the fixture list puts both at home across a weekend, you can collect two grounds without moving hotel, without a train, and without much walking. This series has recommended a lot of pairings; nothing else in it is this convenient.

Nottingham Forest are a Premier League club and Notts County are not, which makes the pairing awkward on ticket availability rather than on geography. Check the two fixture lists together and be realistic about which is the harder ticket.

Getting there

• On foot: about twenty minutes from Nottingham station, along the canal or the river.
• By train: Nottingham is around two hours from London St Pancras and an hour and a half from Manchester.
• Match ticket and transport: as everywhere in England, the ticket does not include local transport.

Tickets

The English pattern: no document demanded, online sale, away allocations routed through the visiting club. Buy from the club.

Nearly twenty thousand places for a third-tier club, in a city that mostly supports somebody else, makes this one of the easier tickets in the English series. Ordinary fixtures are straightforward. Forest, if the two ever meet again in the league, is not.

Where away fans sit

Visiting supporters have their own stand, with the allocation set per fixture. As across English football, segregation is stricter and more visible than on the continent. Neutrals should buy a home seat and keep their reactions moderate.

The alcohol rule

Under the Sporting Events (Control of Alcohol etc.) Act 1985 you may not drink alcohol within sight of the pitch at a designated match in England and Wales. Beer is sold in the concourse, sale stops around fifteen minutes before kick-off, and resumes at half-time.

This catches out every visitor arriving from Germany or Czechia. The pre-match drink happens in a pub, not in your seat, and Nottingham has plenty of pubs.

The ground itself

Meadow Lane holds 19,841 in four stands, all-seater, football-specific, sitting right on the bank of the Trent. It was substantially rebuilt in the early 1990s and is comfortable rather than characterful.

What makes it worth a visit is not the architecture. It is that the oldest professional club in the world still plays here, in front of crowds well short of capacity, three hundred metres from a Premier League ground. That gap between history and present is the whole point.

Eating and drinking at the ground

English football catering: pies, chips, burgers, Bovril. Concourse beer only, as above. Card payment nearly everywhere.

Nottingham before the match

What to see

• The City of Caves — Nottingham is built on soft sandstone and has several hundred artificial caves cut into the rock beneath it, used as cellars, tanneries and wartime shelters. You can tour a section of them from under a shopping centre, which is a strange and excellent hour.
• Nottingham Castle — on its rock above the city, with the Robin Hood statue outside that every visitor photographs.
• Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem — a pub built into the castle rock claiming a date of 1189. Several English pubs claim to be the oldest; this is the most atmospheric of the claimants, with rooms cut straight into the sandstone.
• The National Justice Museum — in the old courthouse and gaol, with the cells and the courtroom preserved.

What to eat and drink

• A proper pie — the East Midlands takes pies seriously, and Melton Mowbray pork pie, protected by origin, comes from half an hour away. Eaten cold, with mustard.
• Stilton — the blue cheese, also protected, also from this corner of England.
• Bramley apple — the cooking apple every English crumble is made from originated in Nottinghamshire.
• Real ale — cask bitter served cool from a handpump. Nottingham has one of the better pub scenes in England for it.

Common questions

Are they really the oldest club in the world?

The oldest professional club, founded in 1862. Some amateur clubs are older; none of them turned professional and survived as a league club the way Notts County did.

Is the Juventus story true?

Yes, and it is documented: John Savage, an Englishman at Juventus, had a Notts-supporting friend send shirts to Turin at the end of 1901. Juventus have worn stripes ever since.

Can I really do two grounds in a day?

Two grounds in a weekend, easily — they are three hundred metres apart. Two on the same day only if the kick-off times allow, which occasionally they do.

How hard is a ticket?

Easy by English standards. Twenty thousand places and third-tier demand.

Founded in 1862, the reason Juventus wear stripes, and three hundred metres from a Premier League ground. Add Meadow Lane to your bucket list and check Forest's fixtures for the same weekend.