How Home Support Kept Nottingham Forest In The Premier League

“Make your home ground a fortress”

One of soccer’s oldest clichés, but one grounded in truth.

It’s no stretch to say Nottingham Forest’s form at their City Ground fortress has kept them in the Premier League.

Most teams win more matches at home than they do away. Across the Premier League last season, the home side won 184 games, the away side won just 109. But the disparity between home and away form doesn’t get much wider than it did at Nottingham Forest.

The Reds had the tenth-best home record in the Premier League last season, only losing five times at home, beating Arsenal and Liverpool at the City Ground and drawing with Manchester City and Chelsea.

Forest’s away form on the other hand was the worst in the league, with just eight points and a goal difference of minus 33 from away games. Forest’s only victory on the road came at bottom-of-the-league Southampton.

A big part of Forest’s home form has been the atmosphere at the City Ground with the whole stadium behind the team, cheering on tackles and catches as if they are goals, and earning praise from visiting fans.

“You see the Brian Clough stand, which usually isn’t an atmospheric stand, all on their feet, all singing, all waving their scarves.” says Greg Mitchell, “It really is an incredible spectacle.” Mitchell is co-founder of fan group Forza Garibaldi, which is behind the large banners and displays that decorate the Trent End before matches.

Those banners often pay homage to the city and club’s history, featuring landmarks like the famous Trent Bridge that fans cross on the way to the City Ground, or local heroes like the “city of rebels” banner which featured suffragettes and civil rights leaders alongside the city’s most famous rebel, Robin Hood.

Forza Garibaldi, named after 19th century Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi, whose Redshirts were the reason Forest play in red, was founded because the club’s previous owner seemed to neglect the club’s long and storied history.

At that time the club were stuck in mid-table in the Championship, English soccer’s second tier, missing out on promotion year after year, and it was hard for fans to imagine a brighter future.

“We had 23 years waiting,” says Mitchell of Forest’s time outside of the top flight, “it got to the point where we thought it would never happen.” Forest were bottom of the Championship when current head coach Steve Cooper took over. As Cooper led the team up the table, fans started to believe again.

This belief has meant fans have stayed behind the team and head coach, no matter what.

At the lowest point of the season, when Nottingham Forest lost 4-0 to Leicester City at the bottom of the Premier League, fans kept chanting Cooper’s name. Many owners would have sacked the head coach at that point, but Forest’s owner Evangelos Marinakis saw the fans’ backing and, like the fans, kept the faith. In a season with a record number of sackings, Steve Cooper kept his job.

Ahead of their next home match against Aston Villa, the fans unfurled a banner of their head coach and a message reading “We have come so far and we’ve only just begun.”

From that point, Forest’s home truly became a fortress, and from early October till the end of the season, only Manchester United and Newcastle United came away from the City Ground with all three points.

Newly promoted sides like Luton Town and Sheffield United will be looking to emulate Forest’s home form, using their compact grounds to their advantage. Luton were actually stronger away last season than they were at home, where they only had the ninth-best record in the Championship. That said, Forest only really made the City Ground a fortress this season, having the eighth-best home form in the Championship in the year they won promotion.

The challenge for Forest now is to keep the strong home support going and avoiding fatigue and “second season syndrome.”

Mitchell believes the fans could be just as loud next season, saying “the Championship season was at the time the best I’ve ever known and I remember thinking we’re not going to be able to replicate that in the Premier League… but we’ve took it up another notch.”

He says that with a good start to the season, “there’s no reason the famous City Ground atmosphere won’t be there, and then some.”