The City Ground has been Nottingham Forest’s home since 1898, and it is one of the most instantly recognisable settings in English football: a red-and-white ground sat directly on the south bank of the River Trent, floodlights reflected in the water, Trent Bridge a two-minute walk away. This is the complete guide to the City Ground — capacity, the four stands, the record attendance, the history and how to get there on a matchday.
City Ground capacity and basic facts
The City Ground holds roughly 30,400 supporters, all seated, which makes it one of the smaller Premier League venues but also one of the loudest when the Trent End gets going. The ground sits in West Bridgford — technically in Rushcliffe, outside the Nottingham city boundary, which is a fact local rivals have never let Forest forget.
- Opened: 1898
- Capacity: approximately 30,400 (all seated)
- Record attendance: 49,946 v Manchester United, First Division, 28 October 1967
- Address: Pavilion Road, West Bridgford, Nottingham, NG2 5FJ
- Setting: the River Trent runs immediately alongside the west side of the ground
The four stands at the City Ground
Each of the four sides has its own character, and the names carry a lot of Forest history.
The Trent End
The home end, behind the goal at the north end of the ground, named for the river that runs alongside it. Rebuilt in the mid-1990s as part of the post-Taylor Report conversion to all-seating, it is where the singing section, the flags and the noise live. If you want the atmosphere, this is where you sit.
The Brian Clough Stand
Formerly the East Stand, renamed in 1996 in honour of the manager who took Forest from the second tier to back-to-back European Cups in 1979 and 1980. It is the largest single stand at the ground and runs the length of the pitch on the side away from the river.
The Peter Taylor Stand
The old Main Stand, on the river side, renamed in 2022 after Clough’s assistant and the other half of the most successful management partnership in the club’s history. It houses the dugouts, the tunnel and the directors’ area. It is also the oldest part of the ground and the section at the centre of the club’s redevelopment plans.
The Bridgford Stand
The away end, at the south end of the ground, split between visiting supporters in the lower tier and home fans above. Its unusual overhanging upper tier was designed that way because of the road running immediately behind it — a genuine quirk of building a stadium on a tight riverside plot.
A short history of the City Ground
Forest were formed in 1865 and moved around the city for three decades — the Forest Recreation Ground, the Meadows, Trent Bridge cricket ground — before settling on the current site in 1898. The land was leased from Nottingham Corporation, which is where the name comes from: it is the City Ground because of the city council’s ownership of the land, not because the ground stands inside the city boundary.
The defining moment of the ground’s modern history came in August 1968, when a fire broke out in the Main Stand during a First Division match against Leeds United. The stand was destroyed. Forest played their home games at Meadow Lane, Notts County’s ground a few hundred yards across the river, for the rest of that calendar year.
That proximity is worth pausing on. The City Ground and Meadow Lane are separated by roughly 300 yards of water, making them the two closest professional football grounds in England — you can comfortably see one from the other.
The ground’s golden era arrived under Clough and Taylor, when a stadium of this size hosted European Cup football and won the trophy twice. It has also staged international football: the City Ground was one of the eight venues used at Euro 96, hosting three group matches and a quarter-final between Portugal and the Czech Republic.
The City Ground redevelopment explained
Forest’s long-running plan is to rebuild the Peter Taylor Stand, which would lift capacity towards 35,000 and modernise hospitality and matchday facilities that a stand of its age cannot provide. The scheme has been complicated by the ground’s constrained riverside footprint and by lease negotiations with Nottingham City Council over the land.
Progress has been made in 2026 — you can read the latest in our report on the City Ground expansion draft agreement — but no completion date has been confirmed. Any firm timeline you see elsewhere should be treated with caution until the club states it directly.
Getting to the City Ground on a matchday
By train: Nottingham station is the nearest, around a 20-minute walk. Head south towards Trent Bridge and the ground is on your left as you approach the river. The route down London Road and along the embankment is well signposted and busy in a good way.
By tram: Nottingham Express Transit serves the city centre and the railway station; you finish the journey on foot from there.
By car: parking at the ground itself is extremely limited and streets in West Bridgford operate matchday resident permit schemes. Park-and-ride at the Forest Recreation Ground or Queen’s Drive is the sensible option.
Away fans: the Bridgford Stand lower tier is the visiting allocation, accessed from the south side of the ground.
Ticket availability, kick-off times and accessibility information are published by the club on the official Nottingham Forest website, and it is always worth checking there before you travel — Premier League kick-offs move regularly for television.
What it feels like inside
Small grounds close to the pitch generate a particular kind of noise, and this is a good example. There is no running track, no vast gap between the stands and the touchline, and the Trent End sits right on top of the goal. When the Reds are ahead late on, the sound bounces around a bowl that has not lost its 1990s dimensions — which is exactly why plenty of supporters have mixed feelings about the place getting bigger.
For everything happening at the City Ground under Oliver Glasner this season, follow our full Nottingham Forest coverage.
