Black and white County: Tradition and Modernity at Notts County

Words: Tom Reed

Images: Tom Reed

“The game’s gone”, they say, at the top level, where “legacy” supporters cling to the rim of Kellogg's cornflake bowl stadia, while trying to make sense of a sport that feels like it is passing by.

But the debate over modern football isn’t as monochrome as you think, because the black and white club from Nottingham is managing to combine tradition with modernism and making their Meadow Lane a place you want to spend your Saturday at.

Notts County Football Club are the original innovators, being the oldest professional football club in the world, pre-dating the Football Association and starting off their own game, with their own rules in 1862 because the rest of the fledgling sport hadn’t caught up yet.

You get that sense of County being committed to something greater, when you turn up to Meadow Lane on a Saturday, they’re watering the pitch to give the playing surface that extra slickness even though it’s raining.

The statue of the legendary manager and coach duo, Jimmy Sirrel and Jack Wheeler, looks like it’s going to come alive, with the pair urging you to do better.

©Tom Reed/ Terrace Edition. Notts County FC vs Accrington Stanley.

Why then, can’t a football club also do better for its supporters?

Creating an environment which respects football fan culture while also giving match-goers a damned good time? We all remember the good old bad old days of football’s defining terrace years when you could sing your heart out on the concrete stepped enclosures which were also named after pens for farm animals.

Making supporters feel comfortable is part of the reason County have built “The Nest”, a 1200 capacity venue, repurposed from a factory adjacent to Meadow Lane. Fans of the Magpies had previously been dispersed around various pubs before the match but now they have a place to come together, eat, drink and have a sing-song.

There’s beer and there’s street-food and there’s friendly Notts County fans everywhere, part sated by a nice pint but also in the knowledge they are already ensconced when supporters will be queuing down the road later to get in.

You’ll see smart Magpie tattoos on calves and there’s a lovely couple of County fans who will tell you about the club’s Community Foundation, which saved the local Portland leisure centre from closure in 2013 and kept it open, to offer all sorts of outreach programmes as well as a place to swim and knock a shuttlecock around.

The Portland Centre is in the Meadows, or should that be “The Medders”, an estate which contends with deprivation in every sense of the word, financial, educational and in terms of health, but Notts County are showing what true investment is by backing the people that live around the club and contribute to it as a whole.

While BBC TV drama Sherwood focuses on the difficult social history and the dark side of family tensions in Nottinghamshire, County are trying to put smiles on faces and chicken satay in stomachs.

Those queues are fat with hungry fans ready to get out of the drizzle and get some small plates from Nottingham Asian restaurant pop-up Shio and you can see the streetsmarts of the club to treat supporters with respect and give them plenty of what they want, instead of the rank burgers of old.

The Nest screens England matches, providing that vital alternative income, while it is also used to nourish away fans when nearby Nottingham Forest are playing and County aren’t at home.

Forest always loom large but it’s clear that County want to give their neighbours a run for their money, with the nearby mural to former Notts manager Jimmy Sirrel and Forest gaffer Brian Clough suggestive that there are very much two teams in the city.

While Forest have the advantage in terms of league positions, County provide one of the most authentic days out in English football, combing industrial jaggedness with a feeling of looking to the horizon to see what’s coming over.

The yellow steps up to the Kop are a striking contrast to the black and white and the grey and you can stop a while and see, grandads, mums and dads and lads in Burberry scarves skip up for the highlight of the week.

The back of the Kop retains the tight gangways, that are going out of the game so quickly with the likes of Goodison Park so soon to disappear but they provide the perfect contrast as you open out onto the pitch, that would have salesman from Carpetright salivating given how beautifully it runs.

County are owned by Danish brothers Alexander and Christoffer Reedtz, who head-up Sports Radar, and their data driven approach has seen the likes of Rúben Rodrigues and Macaulay Langstaff star before being targeted by clubs that are for now, higher up the food-chain.

There was a tremendous ovation for Sven-Göran Eriksson, the former Notts County manager in the difficult Munto Finance years, who passed recently but will never be forgotten round here, not least for refusing to pursue a wage claim that would have finished the club off.

It was, fittingly, David McGoldrick who settled Saturday’s match against Accrington Stanley, the Nottingham lad who came through the County youth setup, with the first touch and finish to stroke the ball into the top corner from 25 yards for the opener.

In the Kop, the stewards talked to you about how long they have worked for the club instead of hurrying you to your seat and a grandad with decades and decades of unbroken support for County held his grandson in his arms and they both smiled.

There’s stickers placed discretely from Juventus FC, the once youthful Italian club that grew into giants and got their black and white colours from County.

Notts County won the match 2-0 to go second in League 2. The supporters, hopped down the yellow steps and looked between the four separate stands that Forest’s City Ground can’t match, with the view between like football’s Grand Canyon or Niagara Falls.

For fans that keep falling in and out of love with football, it’s grounds like this and clubs like Notts County FC that pull you back in.