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Published: January 23rd 2021
The steward kept a beady eye on me, as I photographed the old ticket collection point. It was FA Cup 3rd Round weekend. In yesteryear, it was possibly one of the highlights of the football calendar. The modern game and the rise of the Premier League has seen the "top" clubs fielding weakened teams and treating the competition with a degree of contempt. What was the steward doing there just after midday on this cold, bright winter Saturday? The ticket collection point was all locked up. The turnstiles remained closed. Inside the home team had scored after a few minutes of this early start. A rare goal of quality in this stop / start season, but there would be no crowd adulation today. A few club officials and members of the press would the only ones present to witness slim 1-0 victory over their Welsh visitors.
We are back in lockdown again. The Tiers For Fears had been abandoned once more, in favour of stricter measures. There would be nowhere to go for the foreseeable. Stay at Home was the message, but exercise was permitted within limits. A nearby local Constabulary had an unusual interpretation on the powers, but so
far the tactics akin to stop and search techniques hadn't reached our locality. We followed the route of the Grantham - Nottingham Canal, that winds a path towards the River Trent from near the house. The canal was originally constructed to transport coal to the Grantham area and meanders 33 miles through the Vale of Belvoir. The return boats ferried agricultural produce in the opposite direction to feed the industrial city. The canal opened in 1797, had a brief heyday in the years up to 1841 and succumbed to the power of the railways. It finally shut in 1936, though boat traffic had ceased in 1929. It is now the subject of attempts to reopen it in a meaningful leisure way. The ice lay thick on some of the slow moving water. The overnight temperatures had dropped and had not climbed back above minus 3 degrees Celsius, as we walked. The moorhens busied themselves on the unfrozen water and a few early arrival swans were staking a claim to the best waterside nesting spots. The male Mallard ducks looked majestic, as they do at anytime of the year.
The obvious track of the Canal peters out near, as we
Lady Bay Bridge, Nottingham
Aka The Bridge Of Spies in the dramatisation of Smiley's People by John Le Carreapproached the Trent. We circumnavigate the old Boots sports facilities. Boots are predominantly associated with the Beeston area in the west of the city, but their second oldest store was on the approach to Trent Bridge. The complex has now been sacrificed and is now known as the Nottinghamshire Sports Club or something similar. The main tenants are the 2nd Division club, Nottingham Rugby. They have added some temporary grandstands, but would require some serious development to increase the standard capable of hosting a higher level of rugby. We walk down to the River Trent, skirting the enclosed fields at the far end of the Sports Club. The signs on the fence give notice of the occupation of this area by Notts County Football Club. The financial woes of recent times had left them with a rather nomadic approach to training, but they have now set up home on the old pitches once used by their neighbours, Nottingham Forest. East Midlands rivals, Leicester City, have just unveiled a multimillion pound, multi acre state of the art training complex - apparently essential to challenge for honours these days and impress your latest prospective overpaid transfer target. However let us not forget
it was on these rather scruffy looking training pitches, a man from Middlesbrough masterminded possibly the greatest feat ever in English football - notably winning the European Cup with a provincial team. This was at time of course, when you had to actually win something to get to play in the premier European Cup competition! For good measure, it was retained the following year in the Bernabeu in Madrid against a Keegan inspired Hamburg SV. As the Man in the Middle often quips, "We went to Europe, We won the Cup Twice"!
The riverfront was quite hectic with others out walking. The blue skies had tempted out the masses. A couple floated past on their paddle boards. Two others were messing about in a dinghy. The area across the river was being transformed. The executive high rise apartments at Riverside Apartments have been in situ for a few years now. Sven Goran Erickson was reputed to be resident in one of the penthouse suites, during his brief and bizarre flirtation with Notts County. If he was still around, he would no doubt be somewhat annoyed that his views were being restricted by the new flats springing up next door.
Boat Club, Trentside, West Bridgford
...... once host to Led Zeppelin, U2, Motorhead and many more The adjacent apartments are well underway and next to that, Trent Basin is being redeveloped. Trent Basin used to feature two huge warehouses around the dock cut in off the River Trent. The river frontage at the end of Trent Lane was the hub for the "Hull" trade, that was at a peak between the World Wars. The river system was navigated all the way to the Humber Estuary as part of the operations by the Trent Navigation Company. The improvements to the River Trent lock systems were hailed as the greatest development on Britain's inland waterway infrastructure since the construction of the Manchester Ship Canal. The extensive trade up and down the river was still running into the 1960s and 1970s. Trent Basin is now described as "Nottingham's new sustainable community" in a riverside neighbourhood. We will see in the coming years, whether the dream and marketing script matches the reality.
We walked under Lady Bay Bridge. The former railway bridge was converted to car usage, after the demise of the old line towards the south in 1968. It opened to take the pressure off the main Trent Bridge in 1979. It was used as a double for
the crossing over the River Havel in Berlin in the dramatization of John Le Carre's novel, Smiley's People. Lady Bay became the Glienicke Bridge - the so called Bridge of Spies, due to previous use for exchanges in the Cold War period - linking the West Berlin district of Wansee and Potsdam in the East. Forest staged a dramatic getaway from East Berlin in their European Cup winning days. A 0-1 home defeat made retention of their trophy seem unlikely, but they secured a 3-1 away leg victory over Dynamo Berlin 2 weeks later. The only exchanges this time were possibly the club pennants.
The floodlights of Meadow Lane are close by on the north side of Trent. The home of Notts County - formally known as the oldest Football League club in the world. They formed in 1862 and were original members of the Football League. There are many in these parts, who will remind you it is no longer a correct description with their relegation into the non League ranks. The official line now seems to indicate they are the oldest professional association football club in the world. Their black and white stripes inspired the strip choice
of a certain small team from Turin, which often explains the presence of the visiting Italians. The fans of AC Milan are always in Nottingham too - paying homage to an expat by the name of Herbert Kilpin, who is seen as their founding father. The "Lord of Milan" grew up on Mansfield Road north of the city centre. The building is unfortunately hidden behind a bus shelter!
As an outsider, you might wonder why the team with County in their name play in Nottingham City and the team with Nottingham in their name play on the County side of the river. However, history will tell you that both originally played on the north or City side of the River. Notts County did though use the area behind the Trent Bridge Inn pub in the County as their home pitch for big games in the 1880s and didn't rock up in their current location until 1910. Meanwhile, the first grounds used by Forest were on the City side of the river. They moved steadily towards the River Trent area. The Town Ground was in the Meadows (somewhere near the end of Arkwright Street) in the early years of their
Football League existence.
We are currently on Trentside, south of the river - home of the City Ground. The Brian Clough Stand looms over us away to our left. The Trent End cantilevers over the road to maximise the available space near the water's edge. The old terraces were redeveloped in advance of England hosting Euro 1996. The Pitchside Diner is seemingly no more. The sheer size of it prevents the mist rolling in from the Trent, but it doesn't stop the fans banging out the song to the tune of Paul McCartney's Mull of Kintyre. This end of the ground hosts .... and I quote, "The 150th Anniversary Wall". The bricks are inscribed with the name of longstanding fans, clustered around a central theme. The two central displays commemorate Munich and Madrid - the host cities for the respective European Cup triumphs. The 2 stars above the tree symbol on the badge signify the 2 triumphs. It remains to be seen, if another central brick ever arrives to celebrate a 3rd win. In modern football, it seems unlikely. The Man in the Middle has his brick further along the Stand. As he puts it, he is "waiting patiently
for the 3rd star".
The low level buildings beyond the City Ground are home to the rowing clubs, who frequent this part of the river on weekends and summer evenings. The venues are possibly under threat from a planning application. The riverfront has become prime land and as well, a new Main Stand for the football club, developers have their eye on another batch of expensive apartments. It might not just be the Block A gang losing their homes. The most famous of the rowing emporiums is so for no reason to do with rowing. The Boat Club has a special part to play in the music history of the city. The emphasis now is on Rock City and the Rescue Rooms, but between 1963 and 1981, it was all happening down here on Trentside. It started out as a sort jazz club on the side to make a bit of money for the rowing side, but it turned into something bigger. The bands that played here include Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull, Sex Pistols, Average White Band, Iron Maiden , Gary Moore, Souxsie & The Banshees, Rod Stewart, Ultravox, Supertramp (on a number of occasions), The Pretenders, Ian Drury,
Simple Minds, Eric Clapton, Motorhead, Dire Straits, The Sensational Alex Harvey Band and more. Steve Winwood had his 21st birthday party there. The capacity was a mere 250. Led Zeppelin played there twice - 1969 and 1971. The band received the sum of £90 for the 1969 gig, but played 1971 for free on the condition that the tickets were no more than "5 bob". I just read that a ticket stub for the "5 bob" event has sold for £500 on Ebay. The performance on 21 March 1971 was squeezed in on the way back down to do a show at The Marquee in London. It seems unbelievable, but even more unbelievable that the band were playing venues such as Madison Square Garden and Maple Leaf Gardens on their North American tour later that summer. The Boat Club must have been buzzing for tracks such as Stairway To Heaven.
I walked out on Trent Bridge to take a photograph looking back south. The old Rushcliffe Civic Centre has now been converted into luxury apartments. It was the former Bridgford Hotel in another life. It was all quiet near the "world renowned" Trent Bridge Inn on the corner of
the cricket ground. It is now a Spoons - a well known passionate supporter of the Brexit reality - and somebody had been defacing the newsletter published in the window. Lies and fairytales was the judgement. A certain William Clarke was instrumental in developing the cricket ground next door. It probably helped that he married the landlady, Mary Chapman and thus secured permission to use the field out the back of the pub. Trent Bridge Cricket Ground is generally considered to be either the 2nd or 3rd oldest cricket venue in the world and is home to Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club. The new media centre now sits atop of the Radcliffe Road Stand with a restaurant. We walked on, past the Main Gates at the Pavillion End, towards the centre of West Bridgford or Bread 'n' Lard Island, as the rest of Nottingham likes to describe it. The saying comes from the perception that the inhabitants pay so much for their houses money and fur coats, money for decent food is scarce! The majority regardless, just keep on spending. You have to show the neighbourhood, money is no object.
West Bridgford was once home to another major Cricket Ground,
although this would be news to most modern day inhabitants. A mile away from Trent Bridge stands West Park. Today, it is a recreation park owned by Rushcliffe District Council. However, it was once the private cricket venue for an enthusiast of the game with rather deep pockets. The extensive 1926 pavilion still stands to mark the park as something slightly out of the ordinary. Sir Julien Cahn inherited the family business, expanded it into a 300 + shop empire and made a small fortune. He supported many causes, such as buying Lord Byron's Newstead Abbey and gifting it to the city of Nottingham. However, his first love was cricket. In between the World Wars, he ploughed some of his money into forming his own touring cricket team as well as developing this ground and another within his home at nearby Stanford Hall near Loughborough. We aren't talking about just getting his mates involved either? Sir Julien literally hired County and International players to form his team. The Kerry Packer of his day, not content with picking off lesser opposition at home, arranged for his team to tour the world during the winter months. Jamaica, Ceylon, Canada, New Zealand -
all were included in his globetrotting itinerary. He traditionally played all oversees touring teams as part of their programme on visits to the UK. Sir Julien made his debut in a "First Class" match in March 1929, in Kingston, Jamaica. He was captain of his team that included 8 Test players. Despite being bowled for a duck, he apparently kept up the spirits of the team having brought plenty of hampers from Fortnum & Mason along with him! The Sir Julien Cahn XI only lost 19 out of 621 games they played between 1923 and 1941. He died in 1944. West Park was sold to the local Council.
We walked back down Central Avenue, where the coffee drinkers were enjoying their takeaways. They were safe in the knowledge that lockdown rules had been reinterpreted to say that your Costa to go was not in fact classed as a "picnic" by the forces of law and order. The spirit of Bread & Lard Island was being fully embraced.
Appendix 1 FA Cup 3rd Round Nottingham Forest FC 1 Cardiff City FC 0 Venue: City Ground, Pavilion Road, Nottingham. NG2 5FJ
Date: Saturday 9th
January 2021 @ 1200 Hours
Attendance: Nil - Behind Closed Doors
Scorers: 1-0 Taylor 3 Mins (Nottingham Forest)
Nottingham Forest: Smith, Bong, Jenkinson, Worrall, McKenna, Cafu, Lolley, Arter (Sow 86 Mins), Guerrero (Yates 66 MIns), Ameobi (Mighton 60 MIns),Taylor
Cardiff City: Phillips, Bacuna, Bagan, Bennett, Vaulks (Hoilett 63 Mins, Pack (Harris 84 Mins), Wilson, Ralls, Murphy (Ojo 78 Mins), Glatzel
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Tot: 0.057s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 14; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0213s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Tommy No Papers
TWR
Mist rolling in from the banks of the Trent!
I loved this blog! It brought together two of my favorite subjects, championship football and people finding ways to enjoy their lives even under oppressive restrictions. I attended my first English football games in 2019, City Ground and Elland Road. Nice idea to include the lineups and attendance at the end.