The thought of Forest leaving the City Ground horrifies me. It is a piece of true sporting heaven

AWALK through my adopted home town a year ago took me to the place where Manchester City’s Maine Road stadium used to be. In the middle of a housing estate, a patch of ground has been preserved and the old centre spot remains.

It’s a lovely touch and important, too. Still, it struck me this week reading about the row over the future of Nottingham Forest’s City Ground just how many of our great football venues have been taken from us. Important pieces of history flattened in the name of progress.

In the main, this sits OK with me. It’s painful and it ages those of us who remember visiting these places. But that doesn’t mean it’s

VAR needs to change but so do we. That search for a sporting perfection that simply does not exist was futile from the start. We should have realised that before we all headed down this road to regret.

not OK. Clubs don’t just have responsibilities to the past, they also have an obligation to safeguard the future.

In Nottingham, however, it doesn’t feel as though it’s OK. Quite the opposite, in fact.

The story of Forest’s dispute with the local council is shot through with stubbornness. In short, Forest lease the land on which the City Ground sits from the local authority. The council want to increase the cost of the lease and Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis says he is considering abandoning plans to redevelop the ground and instead relocating six miles outside of town on the Derbyshire border.

The thought of this horrifies me and it’s at this point that I should declare an interest. I used to work for the local newspaper in Nottingham, so the city and the football club mean something to me.

Regardless, the City Ground remains one of this country’s finest places to watch football. Sitting by the River Trent with Notts County’s Meadow Lane on the other side and Trent Bridge Cricket Ground over the road, it is simply impossible to pass through that section of prime sporting real estate without thinking of the likes of Brian Clough, Harold Larwood and Tommy Lawton.

There is a beauty to it, especially at night when the floodlights reflect from the water down by the rowing clubs that serve as pre-match drinking dens. From that perspective, it is almost unmatched.

Newcastle has that feel to it also. Walk from the station up the hill towards the back of the towering Gallowgate End and it’s impossible not to be moved by the sense of history.

But while Newcastle owners have also considered moving, there is an unfortunate logic to that.

There is precious little space to redevelop St James’ Park and the club does need a bigger stadium. Everton are leaving Goodison Park for the same reason.

In Nottingham, it’s different. The City Ground sits on land with scope for expansion and redevelopment. The club already have plans for a 40,000-capacity redesign drawn up and tucked away in a drawer.

And this is the point. This is not really a debate about the future and about the best interests of a club and its supporters. No, it’s about money and as such is pretty grim. Forest currently pay an annual rent of £250,000 for the land on which their stadium sits and object to the council’s intentions to hike it to closer to £1million. Meanwhile, there is an option to buy the land for £10m sitting on the table.

Forest’s wage bill is just over £150m a year, so it’s easy to see why many of the club’s supporters feel Marinakis should stump up and quickly.

Marinakis — interviewed and portrayed expertly by my colleague Sami Mokbel in these pages earlier this week — sees opportunity in relocation and that’s understandable.

In the current climate, clubs can only spend what they earn and the Greek businessman envisages a 50,000- capacity venue and all the financial opportunities that would come with it.

The truth is, though, that Forest do not have to go. The Athletic have reported expertly and thoroughly on this matter but instead of scoring points through the media, it would sit rather better if the club and the council sat down and talked.

Progress is essential in modern sport. Those who get left behind tend to wither.

Clubs who move out of necessity do so with heavy hearts but a clear conscience.

Nottingham Forest simply do not have to leave their little piece of sporting heaven by the Trent. If they did, they wouldn’t have drawn up those redevelopment plans in the first place.

Those on both sides of this rather unseemly debate owe it to their city, its biggest football club and its supporters to get together and sort this out.