Notts County FC
Meadow Lane
Nottingham
Nottinghamshire
NG2 3HJ
Ground: 104
Date: Saturday 18th January 2020
Notts County 0-0 Dover Athletic
National League
Attendance: 5,157 (official)
Notts County - 5 Facts
1) Notts County were founded in 1862 and are one of the oldest football clubs in the world, as well as the oldest professional football club in the world. The club became founder members of the Football League in 1888.
2) For most of the club's history, they have plied their trade in the bottom two divisions of the Football League, with irregular spells in the top two tiers. The club's best ever finish came in the 1890/91 season when they finished 3rd in the top tier.
3) At the end of the 1991/92 season, the club were relegated from Division 1 into Division 2, missing out on a place in the opening season of the Premier League. Since then, the club have never competed in the top tier again. The club have not competed in the second tier since relegation to Division 2 at the end of the 1994/95 season.
4) After that relegation, the club spent the next two and a half decades drifting between the third and fourth tiers. After falling short in the 2017/18 League 2 play-offs, the club had a disastrous 2018/19 season and finished second-from-bottom, suffering relegation out of the Football League for the first time ever.
5) The club reached the FA Cup final for the first time in the 1890/91 season, but lost out to Blackburn Rovers. Three seasons later, the club reached the final again, this time beating Bolton Wanderers to win their first and only FA Cup. The club have reached the Quarter Finals of the Football League Cup three times, most recently in the 1975/76 season. The club also won the Anglo-Italian Cup in the 1994/95 season, beating Italian side Ascoli in the final.
My Visit
After I came back home for Christmas just over a month ago, I started looking at groundhopping options to tide me over until I return to University. I was always planning for two groundhops outside of Yaxley's two scheduled away games at new grounds during that time: one would be on the train and the other would see me asking for a lift. This then changed when the visits to Halesowen and Wantage were both postponed, leaving me with an extra groundhop on the train (that ended up being Downham Town a few weeks back).
Originally, I was considering heading to Norwich's FA Cup match at Preston two weeks ago on the train, but I didn't think that would be worth it after a series of disappointing results. Instead, I decided to hold off on the groundhop on the train until yesterday (with the 11th originally being slated for the Halesowen visit which was postponed), allowing me to take in Yaxley's home match against St. Neots on the 4th instead.
To find a match on the 18th, I looked at Nearby Fixtures on the Futbology App and found a few which were potentially feasible on the train. However, issues with Greater Anglia meant my options soon became very restricted. This was one of the few that were available and, after doing some research on how much it would all cost, I decided to go for it. However, I opted to wait until after Christmas and just before the New Year to order my match and train tickets (the latter so as to avoid the New Year price hike on train tickets), paying £14 for the match ticket (and a few admin fees) and around £17 for the return ticket to Nottingham.
During my initial research, I noticed a lot of pubs within the proximity of the ground and, with train times working out reasonably well for it, I opted to have a pre-match meal in Nottingham to make more of a day of it (rather than just going to and from the match as I usually end up doing). I ended up opting for the Trent Bridge Inn for my pre-match meal, though I was prepared to adjust that plan in case of an unlikely postponement (another good reason to get an early train in).
Eventually, the day of the match rolled around and, after a wet and miserable week of Storm Brendan (which saw Yaxley's visit to Wantage postponed yet again), it was a cold but sunny day, so no need to worry about back-up plans. I was driven to the train station and dropped off at 11:10am, picking up my train tickets before heading to the platform to wait for the train. The journey from there to Nottingham took around an hour and I killed the time by playing on my 3DS and occasionally flicking through Twitter.
The train arrived in Nottingham at around 12:30pm and I set off from the station to find the Trent Bridge Inn. Initially, Google Maps led me into a housing estate to get to the bridge, but it neglected to make any mention of the fact that the footpath was completely closed partway down, meaning I wasted around five minutes rerouting myself and getting out of the estate. Still, I made it to the bridge itself before 1pm, taking a quick photo of Forest's ground before going across and into the Trent Bridge Inn (it looked quite nice from the outside, so I wish I had bothered to get a photo of it now).
With any luck, I'll be able to get here next season
Naturally, being just around lunchtime, it was rather busy inside, but I was able to find a free table in the back. From there, I used the Wetherspoons app to order a BBQ bacon beef burger, adding an egg on the side to put in the burger as well. This and my drink - a J20, as I'm not hugely fond of alcohol in all honesty - cost me £7.50 and arrived within about ten minutes. It was a great meal and really filled me up, but when I was finished it had only just gone 1:30pm, so I sat in the pub for another half an hour before making my way back across the bridge to the ground.
As I walked around the outside of the ground, I took a few photos to keep myself occupied before eventually reaching the intended turnstiles. Once I did, it was simply a manner of getting my ticket scanned and being allowed in, without any of the checks I had been expecting to encounter (though that doesn't guarantee that this would have been the case if I did have a bag with me).
From there, I headed into the concourse beneath the stand and went to the toilet before going up to find my seat. At the top of the stairs out of the concourse, I took a few photos of the ground before climbing the steep steps to my seat. From there, I took a few more photos (all of these were on my phone, as I expected they wouldn't allow people to use cameras, as is often the case at higher levels) and sat down for a bit, before heading back down into the concourse to grab a bottle of water. After that, I returned to my seat and remained there throughout the match.
Going into this match, Notts County had the better of the table and the form book, so I was expecting them to be favourites in this fixture. However, with their manager having just won manager of the month for December, I was wary of the potential for the manager of the month curse influencing things.
Only Notts County bothered to post a teamsheet on Twitter, so I had no clue who was playing for Dover until I checked to write my report
Here's my report on a dour football match which saw Dover earn the point they came for against a relatively toothless Notts County side:
Notts County started the match on the front foot and earned themselves a corner within the first minute, though they didn't make it count. They remained in control for the first ten or so minutes as Dover tried to weather the storm and get a hold of the ball. In the 14th minute, Wes Thomas could have given Notts the lead with a low shot from a cross, but it went narrowly wide for a goal kick.
As the away side started to gain a foothold in the match, the chances began to run dry for the home side and we quickly reached an impasse: Notts had most of the ball but were struggling to break through the resilient Dover backline, whereas Dover lacked a real outlet to counter with as Inih Effiong was isolated up-front. The home side had the half's best chance in the 41st minute when Thomas' low shot from the edge of the box was saved by the feet of Dover keeper Lee Worgan, before the attempted rebound was easily caught.
The home side also started the second half on the front foot and began to stretch the play, leading to another excellent chance for Thomas: a through ball split the Dover defence and set him through one-on-one, but the shot lacked conviction and was easily palmed clear. After another long spell of the two sides cancelling each other out, Dover had their best chance of the match in the 69th minute: after a free kick was headed clear, Shadrach Ogie attempted a volley but was narrowly off-target.
The rest of the second half was a scrappy affair as Dover attempted to run the clock down and Notts tried to fight through and push for a winner. Both sides had chances here and there, but there was little flow to proceedings and neither keeper had much to do. Thanks to a late head injury to Dover's Ricky Modeste, there were ten minutes of injury time and Notts almost secured the win at the death: from a free kick on the edge of the box, Enzio Boldewijn shot beneath the wall and towards goal, but his effort hit the post and was cleared.
So, a poor match which put a slight damper on an otherwise enjoyable afternoon out: neither keeper really had much to do, as Dover never really threatened to score besides set pieces and Notts County couldn't really break through often enough to create good chances. Still, it was a fine afternoon out at an extremely impressive ground for this level.
As would be expected with a crowd of over 5,000, it took a while to get out of the ground, but once I did it was a short walk back to the station, where I had a twenty-minute wait for the train back to Peterborough. This ended up leaving five minutes late, but it still got me back into Peterborough at around 6:40pm as I was expecting.
I won't be watching any more football matches before I return to University in eight days, so my next groundhop will be on the 28th when I visit another of the National League's Magpies: I'll hopefully be visiting Maidenhead United for their county cup match against Marlow.
The Ground
Meadow Lane is an impressive all-seater ground which wouldn't look out of place in the Championship. The ground has 20,211 seats, but its official capacity for football matches is currently 18,816. The Derek Pavis Stand - where I was seated - is the largest stand at the ground with 6,715 seats. Directly across from this is the Jimmy Sirrel Stand, which is exclusively for away fans and contains 5,775 seats.
The Kop is the larger of the two stands behind the goals, with 5,440 seats compared to the 2,281 seats of the Hayden Green Family Stand. The Kop is the tallest stand at the ground and contained the most vocal of the home supporters.
The record attendance at the ground - before it became an all-seater stadium - was 47,310 for an FA Cup match against York City in 1955.
Photos
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