The City Ground is a football stadium in West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire, England, on the banks of the River Trent. It has been home to Nottingham Forest Football Club since 1898 and has a capacity of 30,445. The stadium was a venue when England hosted Euro 96, and is only away from Meadow Lane, home of Forest's neighbouring club Notts County; the two grounds are the closest professional football stadiums in England and the second-closest in the United Kingdom, after the grounds of Dundee and Dundee United. They are located on opposite sides of the River Trent. History Background Nottingham Forest are the oldest league football club in the world, and were founded in 1865, but did not move to the City Ground, their seventh home, until 33 years later in 1898. For their first fourteen years the club played most of their matches at the Forest Recreation Ground, from which they took their name. This was common land so the club were unable to exploit their matches commercially, and as there was no gate money, revenue came mainly from the players' membership fees. When Forest first entered the FA Cup in 1878–79, reaching the semi-finals, they were unable to play home fixtures, as the cup competition rules stipulated that spectators should be charged admission. In 1879 the club left The Forest to play at the Castle Ground in The Meadows, after the Notts Castle Football Club which had previously played there disbanded and its players joined Forest. This allowed Forest to charge admission in time for its second FA Cup campaign in 1879–80. Rapidly-growing interest in the game saw the ability to accommodate large numbers of spectators at football matches increase in importance, and from 1880 most of the club's important games were played at Trent Bridge Cricket Ground, then Nottingham's most advanced enclosed sports venue. In 1883, however, Forest were abruptly replaced as tenants at Trent Bridge by local rivals Notts County, a move possibly connected with Notts' appointment of the secretary of Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club to their own newly-created post of paid Club Secretary. Forest only discovered they were being replaced at Trent Bridge in early August 1883, leaving them very little time to find a new ground, and the Parkside Ground in Lenton, where Forest first played on 22 September, was criticised for its distance from the town, its slope and its uneven surface, with one