FOREST AWAY: Southampton, Saturday 24th August – Fan Guide

Another season is underway and nineteen Premier League away games stretch out in front of us. Perhaps there is a little less sparkle three seasons in but any loss in novelty is surely compensated by the idea that Forest are slowly on the way to becoming an established top flight team for the first time since the mid-90s. Another season of safety will see Forest record their longest ever run in the Premier League.

Earlier this summer we welcomed the amendments made to the away membership scheme. The addition of a secondary ‘loyalty’ layer feels like a positive adjustment and one that we had called for since the original ticket scheme was launched after promotion in 2022.

The inclusion of a ballot as a third level remains open for debate. It was good to see fans comment on the removal of stress by having to try and join a Ticketmaster queue, but there is still uncertainty about thousands of fans being subject to a random draw to decide which away games they attend. There are also valid concerns about how someone in the ballot tier is able to gain eligibility to the higher tiers when their ability to tickets will be restricted by the ballot.

As some have pointed out, this may end up a fair method, but it still feels like an unfortunate necessity due to the poor decisions that were taken in 2022 in order to sell more memberships. One sign of this was that we are aware of numerous people who were told they were unsuccessful in the ballot only to then secure a ticket when, presumably, many successful entries hadn’t taken up the offer to purchase a ticket.

Across the board at Forest, ticket and membership prices and policies remain a genuine point of concern and we will endeavour to take these to the club via our place on the Fan Advisory Board.

Here’s to a prosperous 2024/2025 season for the Reds.

 

LAST VISIT

January 2023 and a bizarrely warm evening as Forest earned their first Premier League away victory in almost 24 years with a 1-0 win courtesy of Taiwo Awoniyi’s first half goal.

 

GENERAL ADVICE

The away end at St Mary’s has now changed with travelling supporters housed at the opposite end of the stadium. There is some more information on this in the Q&A below.

Forest fans will need to head to the Chapel / Kingsland stand corner, rather than the Northam End.

 

TRAVEL

TRAINS: Generally, services will go via London with a train to Southampton from London Waterloo. The journey will take around 4hrs and, as had sadly become the norm, fares are expensive. A Super Off-Peak Return is £131.60. By buying a separate Nottingham – London and London – Southampton returns and travelling on certain trains the price can be reduced down to around £100.

Southampton Central isn’t too far from St Mary’s, around 25 minutes or so on foot. The below map shows the route to the stadium.

ROAD: The route we took last time was M1 and onto the A43 at Northampton, briefly onto the M40 and then picking up the A34 at Oxford which will eventually join the M3 and finally the A33 for the final leg into Southampton. As this will be the final week or so of the summer holidays and the beginning of a bank holiday weekend, it’s very possible that the roads will be busier than normal so consider setting off a little earlier.

As the city is largely surrounded by the sea and River Itchen, it’s probably best not to drive in too close to St Mary’s as it can become a bit of a bottle neck, especially afterwards. So a couple of suggestions:

> Park well north of the city / stadium, finding street parking off the A43, perhaps somewhere around Southampton Common. I believe permits and restrictions will apply for some areas, but this worked okay during our visit in 2023. Alternatively, there may be some parking around the St Denys train station which is the stop north of Southampton Central.

> Head onto the other side of the River Itchen and park on the streets around Woolston Station. This involves a bit of effort to navigate around the edge of the city and it is a bit of a walk to the stadium, but seemed to miss most of the main football / city centre traffic. There is also the rather splendid walk over the Itchen Bridge (shown bottom right of the below map) to enjoy going this way and takes you into the south of the city to pick up some decent pubs.

Our Southampton fan below has some further advice if required.

 

Specific information for those travelling by coach:

PUBS

Southampton’s Dedicated Football Officer, PC Lee Grist, points to the Prince of Wales, Chapel Arms and Browns as options for Forest supporters, all within a short walk of the stadium. These are all mixed pubs.

Slightly further away the main venue for away fans is traditionally Yates’, located at the top of Palmerston Park shown on the enclosed map. This seemed to be the main destination for Forest fans when we last visited in 2023.  The Scholar Arms is another which will apparently welcome Reds.

Further south towards the marina area are plenty of decent options. We drank at the White Star Tavern last time and there were a few other places around. Allow around 15 / 20 mins to St Mary’s from here.

 

Q&A with Steve of the Total Saints Podcast

When Southampton slipped out of the Premier League in 2023 you appeared to be a club in disarray. It therefore feels like a real achievement that you returned at the first attempt. Explain for us briefly what went right since relegation?

Rather than flicking between different styles of manager/coach and allowing them to sign players to suit their style only to then sack them shortly afterwards, they appear to have finally decided to pick an approach and stick with it. As a result, they picked Russell Martin because of the match with that style and decided his possession-based approach was the way they wanted to go about things.

There was plenty of logic in that in the Championship as a newly-relegated team who would have been expected to be challenging to go straight back up, and while it took a little while for everybody to fully buy in – sections of the fanbase were probably slightly slower than the players – but once we got through a fairly disastrous September, a club record unbeaten run set us up for a proper crack at the top two.

Ultimately we fell just short after a couple of key injuries in the run-in, but we managed to regroup and refined the formation slightly to come through the playoffs with what was probably about the most comfortable 1-0 win you could imagine at Wembley against Leeds. The right sales were made at the start of the season to clear out players who didn’t want to be here anymore, and a number of key loan signings made the difference throughout, to the extent that two of them were signed permanently this summer.

It feels like a much more together setup a year on. Part of that is down to the manager and his man-management style, he seems to be very approachable and genuinely interested in the players’ wellbeing, which is a far cry from previous managers who were often much more standoffish in their approach.

Last season the three promoted teams went straight back down and there are a lot of suggestions that this will happen again (although Forest are a regular mention too!). What are your thoughts on how the season will got for Saints?

I do think the three of us will be a bit more competitive than the three promoted sides last season, but as ever our fortunes will be decided by the fine margins in both boxes, and while we played very well at Newcastle on Saturday, unfortunately we didn’t score well on those fine margins, gifting them the winner for their only shot on target and missing a host of chances ourselves.

Those will need to improve if we’re to have any chance of staying up, but I think the performance at St James’ Park surprised a lot of people – myself very much included – so I think that will have boosted confidence rather than dented it initially.

 

Russell Martin has developed a reputation for stylish, possession-based football. I recall Forest having to alter our approach in 2022 to make us more resilient, and Vincent Kompany at Burnley drew praise and criticism last season for sticking to his principles. Will Saints be strictly adhering to the same football this season?

There may be some subtle tweaks to the setup, especially against the obvious outliers at the top of the table, but for the most part I fully expect us to continue playing the way we have been playing. Russell Martin has already shown he is willing and capable of adapting the system, having made two major changes to it last season – first in September and second in May, both after runs of defeats – but for the most part I don’t think there’ll be an awful lot of surprises evident in the way we line up.

I think there are two key differences between us and last season’s Burnley side. Firstly, we were able to get permanent deals done for the key loan players, with Taylor Harwood-Bellis’ transfer being confirmed at the final whistle at Wembley with an on-promotion buy clause in the loan deal from Manchester City and Flynn Downes also being signed from West Ham, whereas Burnley weren’t able to keep the likes of Ian Maatsen (subsequently Champions League finalist) or Nathan Tella (Bundesliga champion and German Cup winner).

Secondly, a lot of our XI is likely to be very settled, so Martin won’t be chopping and changing the team in order to try to find the right combination. When you’re new to the league, you need all the help you can get, and a familiar team used to each other’s strengths and weaknesses is very important.

Any parking suggestions for those coming down in the car?

Southampton appears to be quite a car-unfriendly city these days, often with loads of road works and always insane amounts of traffic, often headed through the city towards the docks for the various cruise ships that are in dock on any given day.

If you’re planning on driving, I’d suggest aiming to be in town as early as possible, and picking one of the many multi-storey car parks. Whenever I’ve driven into town for games, usually for midweek games where trains back to London often don’t run afterwards, I’ve headed for West Quay, the massive shopping centre, which has nearly 2500 parking spaces and will cost you £7 for the day (4 hours+). Avoid the “Podium” car park under the shopping centre which is a fiver more.

 

What about pubs for Forest fans? Any good recommendations for places that will welcome away fans?

There’s a handful of options that are definitely away-friendly – Yates will be a designated away-only pub (lucky you!), and then there are mixed options with the Scholars Arms on Above Bar Street and nearer the ground is the Chapel Arms.

You may find some other smaller pubs dotted around the city that let in away fans if you’re in small groups and/or not wearing colours, most venues further afield from the centre of town likely won’t have door staff on.

 

Away fans have switched to the other end of the stadium since we last visited in 2023. What’s the thinking behind this?

A loud portion of the fanbase has been complaining to the club since we moved to St Mary’s in 2001 that away fans are given arguably the best part of the ground right behind the goal and on TV so when we concede the inevitable 93rd minute winner the limbs that follow are broadcast for everyone to see.

There also happens to be some building work going on just behind the Northam End where the old gasworks have been demolished and a new residential development is starting, so I think not wanting away coaches parked up near that development has given the club the excuse to actually get on and make these changes.

The entire Northam End is now safe standing and home only with the cheapest adult season tickets (£499) in the ground, and the away fans have been moved to the furthest point from the old away end, in the Chapel/Kingsland corner where they are away from the cameras, but how the sound dynamic of the back and forth you often get between home and away fans pans out, nobody is quite sure yet.

Finally – let’s have your predictions?

> Scoreline?
> ⁠Where will Southampton finish?
> Where will Forest finish?

Judging by both sides’ opening displays, individual moments of defending have been an issue, so I’m not expecting it to be especially cagey. While some will put a lot of pressure on this game with a view to “beating the teams around you”, I’m of the mind that there are enough games to go that it doesn’t need that sort of pressure yet, especially after a good – if unrewarded – performance at Newcastle last week. We still have issues up front that we need to deal with, and nobody’s quite sure how the new arrangements with the Northam stand will go in terms of generating an atmosphere, so I think we’ll take an entertaining 2-2 draw and move on.

Head still says 18th, heart says 16th.

I think you’ve got enough going forward to get enough points on the board, Chris Wood got well past double figures last season and has already scored again this season (and likely will do again on Saturday, his record against us is annoyingly good), and your wingers should contribute plenty too. As a result, I think you’ll be largely fine in 15th, although a couple of key injuries could prompt the owner to go and sign another 46 players and throw all the recent stability out of the window…

 

 

Thanks to Steve for his insight and good luck to Southampton for the season.

If you are travelling, we’ll see you down there.

Up the Reds.

Matt