Memories of Notts County away..

Been there many a time but never seen Rovers there strangely (and won't be this weekend sadly either).

Have quite a lot of few weird memories of Meadow Lane though.

1.  I once saw a referee collapse in the middle of the pitch and get carried off on a stretcher.  Very peculiar event - took the life out of the crowd cos everyone was very worried as it looked terrible.  The weird thing was that nothing more was said about the incident either on the day or in the press afterwards.  The referee (whose name I've annoyingly forgotten) re-appeared reffing games a few weeks later but nothing was said which was peculiar because everyone who saw it was visibly distressed by the incident.  I always wondered if the ref pleaded with people to keep quiet about it because he was worried about how it might impact his future prospects in the game.

2.  The ex-Tory chancellor Ken Clarke once sat 2 rows back from me at a Notts County game.  I think he was attending some on pitch ceremony in his capacity as the local MP.  He seemed nice enough and approachable but many of the people with him behaved absolutely disgracefully for the whole 90 minutes mocking members of the crowd and being generally boorish.  Only time I've ever complained about the behaviour of a spectator to stewards.

3.  I once saw Steve Evans, when he was at Boston, yell foul moathed abuse and take a run at the kids who used to gather behind the dugouts at Meadow Lane after his team had won a tense encounter.  Really put into perspective what a grade 1 dick he is.  The seats in the main stand behind the dugouts were the best seats in the house because there would always be a touchline ruckus between the 2 benches.  I never failed to see this in the games I watched there and it was because, for reasons best known to themselves, County decided to put the dugouts more or less directly next to each other with only a 2 foot gap inbetween.  Inevitably, someone would 'accidentally' go into the other area and all kinds of macho posturing would then occur.  Didn't seem to matter who the managers were or who was playing - this was clearly part of the ritual of going to County game, people used to anticipate happening!

4.  General observation but County's support always seemed ancient to me - never seen so many old people at football matches as I did there.  Also 'the wheelbarrow song' is the weirdest (and almost certainly the worst) club song that any club has.

5.  I once attended a 'varsity' match at Meadow Lane between University of Nottingham (where I was at the time) and Nottingham Trent.  What a ridiculous occasion that was.  A ground full of a bunch of posh twats pretending to be football hooligans watching a game that was barely park standard.  The daft thing was that midway through the first half a group of people turned up who obviously were actual football hooligans who had clearly turned up expecting there to a genuine dust-up.  They were then lead out after 5 minutes by the police who'd been tipped off that they were going to turn up (because it obviously wasn't a policed match).  Completely farcical - never bothered with that match again.

I might be about the only Rovers fan with a genuine softspot for County who might the most put upon club in the whole country given their proxmitiy to Forest (a rival who really doesn't care a hoot for them) and it looks like they're heading for troubled times again off the field.  Be sad if they dropped out of the league - I'm not at all sure they'd come back.  Meadow Lane is a very strange ground - it is a pretty tidy and distinctive 20K all-seater stadium; although it was rebuilt before the current stadium boom and so is surprisingly short in certain modern features such as coroporate boxes and a big screen (one of the reasons I like the place and it does have character).  The problem is it's not suited to County's needs at all.  I honestly think they'd be better off in a smaller venue that had terracing and an intimate atmosphere.  That would give them a contrast with Forest and they would probably pick up quite a few 'day trippers' who fancied something different.  As it is Meadow Lane seems largely just a place old people go to have a quiet lie down for a couple of hours.

As for things to do in Nottingham - I agree with Astafjevs that the castle is overpriced and a bit crap.  Best viewed from outside actually.  The best thing about Nottingham is it's old school boozers - it's not really a family dayout kind of place.  Walking along the Trent is reasonably pleasant, the waterpark is alright - the old bit of Nottingham around the lace market has some surprisingly interesting old streets (much more of its old City Centre survived WWII than Bristol's did).  Woolaton Park is quite a nice place to take a spin round - similar to Ashton Court but more flat etc but that's about it.  I quite like Nottingham but it's not really a touristy place.