The City Ground FA Cup 4th Round Friday, January 24th 2014
Bridgford End- Nottingham Forest FC
On a miserable Friday night in Nottingham, a cup tie amongst the worst games I’ve seen all year was served up by 2 teams riding high in their respective leagues. Nottingham Forest (Championship) and Preston North End (League 1).
Due to tomorrow’s League 1 match between Notts County and Walsall, the police had to switch this tie. Being a Friday night, Forest saw a potential poor attendance so reacted by offering advance tickets at £10 all round- or £12 on the day. I’d never been to the City Ground before for a game, so I jumped at the opportunity, living as I do at Clifton.
Thw weather had turned wet and wild so upon reading a message on the club website, i made my way to the City at 6:30 but the bus I normally catch was held up in traffic, so I didn’t actually get to the ground until around 7pm. No worries, it is an 8pm kickoff, but queues for tickets were huge and for someone used to a few hundred, maybe 1,000 people at a push on a matchday supporting Boston, the sight of some of the 26,465 people heading towards the ground as quite refreshing.
Having been directed to the ticket booths under the Brian Clough stand, I realized that it is actually not easy to get round the ground when busy. Another 5-10 minutes passed before I joined the queues, then got my ticket- but not without having to sign up to some scheme… I’m only going as a one off!
Back of the Bridgford End at 7:15pm
So I eventually made my way to the Brian Clough Stand Upper tier. Good seats along the 18 yard line towards the Trent End and quite high up too- but not too high. I could see most of Preston’s 2,300 fans (cracking effort on a Friday night).
The ground filled up- not far short of the capacity, but sadly the game would not reflect the quality of the support.
In the first half, Forest created an early opening through Simon Cox, but Declan Rudd palmed away his powerful shot at the near post. Preston played with a solid back with a bank of 5 in very close to restrict Forest’s chances of cutting through the and for all of Forest’s neat possession around un-threatening areas, the visitors with just Paul Gallagher up front to hold the play up, created some moments of their own and but for a better final ball, could’ve capitalised of a few moments of sloppy play from the hosts.
Joe Garner had their best moment but he hooked an awkward ball over from 12 yards. Jamie Paterson, arguably the hosts’ main threat felt he should’ve had a penalty when, after tricking his way past 2 players, he was upended right on the 18 yard line, but his appeals were waved away by Mike Dean.
Jamie Mackie also fired over from a tight angle after good work down Forest’s right hand channel but those efforts aside, it was a case of Forest lacking the urgency to unlock the door.
The 2nd half was little better, though Preston’s system began to give them opportunities more often and it was the Reds’ keeper Karl Darlow who had to be alert to make 2 or 3 good saves and also survived a hair moment as the slippery ball left his grasp after a long range shot from Gallagher, but there were no yellow shirts to tap it in. Garner hit a long range drive inches over, whilst Lee Holmes also forced Darlow into action.
There was very little for the increasingly anxious crowd to get excited about as a display of carelessness and lacking imagination failed to breach an organised visitors’ defence.
Preston will hopefully be more adventurous in the home game when the replay date gets decided. Billy Davies will hope that after 5 straight home wins, Forest get back to winning ways against Watford on Thursday night- they’ll need to be a whole lot better than this.
Main stand and also Trent Bridge cricket ground in the darkness to the left. After full time
I did feel kind of disappointed after the game. I’m not one for being a neutral- it did feel awkward when you’re sat in a seat with nowhere to go and there is little atmosphere being created. Hopefully it’ll be back to normal for my next Boston game I go to as a fan.
Nottingham Forest (4-1-3-2): Darlow; Jara, Halford, Collins, Lichaj; Vaughan; Mackie (Abdoun, 60), Majewski (Derbyshire, 74), Reid; Cox (Henderson, 60), Paterson. Substitutes not used: Harding, Moussi, Lascelles, De Vries (gk).
Preston North End (4-4-1-1): Rudd; Wiseman, Clarke, Wright, Buchanan; Humphrey (Holmes, 71), Welsh, Kilkenny (Hume, 82), Gallagher; Brownhill; Garner. Substitutes not used: King, Stuckmann (gk), Laird, Beavon, Keane.
Referee: M Dean (Wirral).
Attendance- 26,465 (2,305 Preston)
Match Rating- 3/10. Preston came to be organised and were. forest needed much more creativity.
Atmosphere 4/10. Preston fans were good, but for 24,000 Forest fans, it was largely quiet. Disappointing
Prices 7/10. Tonight was £12 which is why I went. i’m not keen on £28 for Yeovil though! Programme was £2 and not particularly deep. The queues for the food stands were so big I didn’t even try.
Ground 9/10. Top notch- especially for someone used to some right dumps. But it is all seater and 25,000 people all filing out the exits at once isn’t good if you ever want to rush back to the train station. (Lucky for me I didn’t)
Rating. 4/10. Ticked the ground off. not much more to say
Thanks for reading
Josh
Under The Floodlights 