The Garibaldi Beer Festival

Trent Navigation, Saturday 26^th August 2017 (12pm – 5pm)

Something we’ve missed at Forest in recent years is a proper home pub where fans could congregate and start to wind up the atmosphere long before kick-off. I’m sure it used to happen and it certainly happens away but there isn’t that place in Nottingham when Forest are at home.

Don’t get me wrong, we aren’t short of fantastic places. There aren’t many better grounds for the quantity and quality of the drinking establishments that surround it but none are regularly jumping at 2pm on a Saturday afternoon. It’s a personal taste of course; most won’t want to lark around and belt out songs before every game but I would assume there are a fair few that do.

Chances are that you are reading this knowing all about Forza Garibaldi – this is our website after all – but hopefully lots more people have started to become aware of us and our numerous endeavours in recent weeks. A big focus for us is to try and transform the atmosphere, especially at home, and something we hit upon fairly early was that we wanted to re-introduce lively and noisy pubs back into the pre-match routine for those that desired it. It’s simply a bit of a kick from us; giving like-minded supporters the opportunity to get together and start pushing the noise before entering the stadium.

The attempts to do this at various locations last season worked better than we could have hoped although we found ourselves fighting fires at the same time as the club lurched closer to oblivion. These gatherings we put on morphed into something we didn’t anticipate – a spirited and defiant mass of people, something of a community event and certainly a big social occasion.

Let’s not pretend there was anything glorious about our survival last season but something began to develop within the Forest support. It was the determination to fight for the club (in various ways) and, despite the differing views we all have, to keep buggering on. Initiatives like ours hopefully contributed in some sort of way but it wasn’t about any group or area of the support, this was about one and all.

Most of this has been said before and, you’re right, much of it should be consigned to history but here we stand with something to build upon; a legacy of sorts from those painful years.

The club has undergone a remarkable transformation over the summer and however these opening weeks of the season unfold; the club is in the best place it has been in for many years. And it’s a prime opportunity for us fans to continue to move forward in tandem with it.

Considering the success of last season’s pre-match offerings we were determined to begin with something big for the first one this time and something a little different… Having played around with some ideas we set off down a road to hold our very own beer festival – The Garibaldi Beer Festival.

This will be at the Trent Navigation on Meadow Lane before the Leeds game and will commence from noon through until around 5pm (5:30pm k.o). It’s a big, big plan which involves an outdoor bar serving cask ales as well as the standard lager etc and also an outside stage for various forms of entertainment. Although the Nav has a large covered area the main space will be down the side of the pub next to the on-site brewery and so much of this is at the mercy of the weather. It will need to be really bad for it to be cancelled entirely but it will be severely restricted if the heavens open. We’ll just have to hope for the best.

Get along as early as you can and please enter the rear courtyard via the side gate, not through the pub to try and keep the carnage at a minimum.

The usual antics will be supplemented by a DJ set and live music throughout the afternoon.  This will include an open mic session where absolutely anyone will be invited to take to the stage and perform. So we would very much like to encourage anyone with a bit of musical talent to come along. A guitar will be provided on the day but feel free to turn up with your own instrument if you so wish… Getting some of you up on stage will be bloody brilliant if we can manage to persuade you and do give any mates a nudge if it’s something they might fancy. The choice of song(s) is entirely up to you although 5 straight versions of Mull of Kintyre might get a bit tedious! We’re already hearing an exciting rumour of one of the Bandy & Shinty boys planning a little something…

We’d also like to make a small show of gratitude by offering a free pint of Navigation lager FOC to the first 50 people to turn up wearing a bonafide FG pin badge. FREE BEER! Recipients will be strictly monitored to make sure there is no passing the badge around and you’ll only get one pint regardless of how many badges you have! We realise that it’s not enough for you all but get in early and you *should* be able to grab one.

On the subject of badges we’ve sold hundreds of them since our latest batch arrived in July. The stock of badges and stickers is almost extinguished online and the remainder we have are going to be available in person at the Nav.

Finally, for those joining us on the four boats before the Wolves game in September this will also be the one and only time to collect your boarding tickets. Collection will be available on the day but pick up before Leeds is much preferred to save us lots of extra hassle.

There’s a really good feeling around NFFC at the moment and we want to do what we can to add to it. Get yourself along to the Trent Nav on Saturday if you possibly can. It’s a Bank Holiday and it’s going to be a great afternoon followed hopefully by an even better evening. See you there.

UP THE REDS!