Why on earth are Nottingham Forest alienating fans at this crucial moment of the season?

It was inevitable that Premier League clubs would try to maximise revenue following Covid losses, Profit & Sustainability clampdowns and continued escalation of player wages. Yet hiking season ticket prices not only guarantees a disconnect between fans and board but is also naïve. Is an extra couple of million quid really worth the distress and disunity, especially at the stage of the season when positivity and togetherness are most vital?

Modest increases in season ticket prices would be accepted by most fans but the startling hikes at Nottingham Forest, and the club’s insensitive handling of the situation, have resulted in an understandable backlash from supporters. There are really good people working at the City Ground, not least on comms, people who care deeply about the club, who care about the fans. So it must have been particularly jarring for loyal season ticket holders to read the tweet on Forest’s official site late on Tuesday night crowing that “now over 11,000 fans signed up to our Official Season Card Waiting List since launch. An incredible demonstration of the huge demand to follow Forest. Thank you.”

Where to start on this? First, it felt almost threatening to those loyal fans, those who have been there through thick and thin, working out whether they could afford the increases during a cost-of-living crisis. Second, do those who have forked out £10 to go on the list all want to follow Forest in the Championship should they fall? Were they fully aware of the imminent increases when signing up? Thirdly, it’s divisive, setting supporters against each other. It all seems completely against what Forest have always stood for, that bond between terrace and team that the late, great Brian Clough spoke of.

Many Forest fans have reacted angrily to season ticket hikes. Pic: Getty Images

                  “Forest are magic, on and off the pitch”, they sing loudly at the City Ground. That relates to pride in their team and pride in their own commitment. The connection with the team remains but this rift with the board arrives at the worst time. Forest have lost only once in five, are 17^th, a point ahead of Luton Town and are making a fight of it. Nuno’s team need unconditional support in their final two home games of the season, the visits of Manchester City and Chelsea. They need their fans’ defiance on the road against Everton, Sheffield United and Burnley. Forest’s board should be fostering a siege mentality, railing the points deductions, not division.

This is no time to be alienating the faithful with what the Nottingham Forest Supporters’ Trust call “totally disproportionate” rises, leading to “many (fans) will now be priced out of renewing”. Fans in the Trent End immediately posted anger at 20% increases. The 18/19-24 age-group, always a price-sensitive category including students and those leaving home for the first time, face a huge hike as adult tickets will be 18-65. And these, often, are the lungs of a stadium, the atmosphere generators. Forest risk losing a generation of fans.

Forest’s owner, Evangelos Marinakis, could have strengthened that bond by bucking the trend elsewhere, kept increases to a minimum, and nurtured further a sense of all being in it together, motivated and magic on and off the pitch. For an intelligent man, Marinakis has not thought this through. After one game, I was invited into Marinakis’ room for a short audience. It was last year, during some of the regular tension about Steve Cooper’s future as head coach. I was – am – an admirer of Cooper’s coaching and man-management skills. So I sat down opposite Marinakis, looked across a table of fruit salads and soft drinks, and listened to the Greek shipping magnate on players, coaches and the media.

Some club owners, past and present, are pigeonholed as detached, unaware, unthinking when they must have nous and a work ethic to be at the top of their businesses. I once met Mike Ashley in the Newcastle United boardroom, invited up after swimming the Tyne for a local charity, and even in the 90 seconds I was in his company, his ferocious, puzzle-solving mind was obvious. He attacked a couple of issues in the footballing headlines with all the dexterity of a Rubik’s Cube speedcubers, and explained how he would solve them. No eye contact, though.

                  Marinakis, patently, is not a stupid person. But he is doing short-sighted things. A great skill in life, personally and professionally, is to listen. Marinakis does not appear to be listening to people at the club or in the Supporters’ Trust or Fan Advisory Board.

In February, when Forest hosted Bristol City in the FA Cup, I went in to see the chairman Tom Cartledge in the boardroom. Born in Nottingham, Cartledge has been a season-ticket holder for 40 years. He’s Forest through and through. He’s a very engaging individual, as anyone who has been in his company will attest, but he and his club, and especially Marinakis, have to engage properly with supporters.

In a statement announcing the hikes, Cartledge commented, “We aspire to keep our Season Cards amongst the most affordable in the League. At the same time, it is imperative that the club continues to grow financially in order to remain competitive, particularly in light of the forthcoming squad cost ratio rules, which will cap spending as a percentage of club revenues.”

Cartledge added that the club were working on safe standing areas in the Bridgford Stand. Many fans will welcome this but the timing of the announcement felt a deflection from the PR - and very real - disaster of the price hikes. Cartledge must know enough fans who will make clear to him the general frustration. He’s a conscientious individual and surely knows himself. This is not the Forest way.

Cartledge surely saw the protests elsewhere. Nobody knows whether Liverpool fans’ “flag ban” protest at ticket increases before last week’s Atalanta game at Anfield affected the result. The Italians were terrific and fully deserved their 3-0 Europa League win. But players, however professional and focused, can sense a change in mood. Some need the adrenalin pulsing from the fans to accelerate them. A subdued, flag-free Kop cannot help.

                  They say you can’t put a cost on something as ephemeral as goodwill. But in football you can to an extent. An impassioned support, as Forest fans generally are, is vital. This is where Marinakis is being particularly naïve. Staying up is worth £100m+ (taking into account current parachute payments if relegated). Every position higher in the table is worth £2.2m, roughly what the Supporters’ Trust estimate will be made by the club from the price hikes.

Retaining a place in the Premier League also means an ability to charge more for everything from perimeter advertising to conferences. It means a feelgood factor in the club, at the training ground and in the city. Premier League status enhances the likelihood of keeping your better players, although the outstanding Morgan Gibbs-White may go this summer regardless. It makes recruitment easier. And one look at the Championship jungle is enough to make any manager shudder. After Forest were last relegated from the top flight, it took them 23 years to return.

It is ensuring the flow of funds from being in the Premier League, from broadcast revenue, that Marinakis should focus on, not testing the patience and depth of pockets of supporters, the life-blood of the club.