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Nottingham Post
Nottingham Post
World
Jamie Barlow

Pub 'overwhelmed' by the amount of Notts County fans wanting to watch play-off final

The manager of a popular pub a few doors down from Notts County's Meadow Lane stadium says staff have been 'overwhelmed' by the amount of Magpies fans wanting to watch Sunday's play-off final at their venue (August 2).

A 2-0 win over Barnet last Saturday, July 25, booked Neal Ardley's side a place in the Wembley final, where they will face Harrogate.

Since the important victory last weekend, Sam Ditchfield, the manager of the Trent Navigation, said his staff had been 'overwhelmed' by the sheer volume of fans wanting to watch the Harrogate game at the pub.

The 26-year-old said: "We've been completely overwhelmed with the demand and I would like to apologise to all the people I've had to let down because far more people have enquired, wanting to come than we could ever possibly fit.

"It's important for us not to be greedy in a situation like this because we do have to make sure the event's safe and not push our capacity.

"The Southbank City, our sister venue, is also fully booked now.

"But, due to the demand that we're still seeing, the number of people, the phone hasn't stopped ringing since that game, emails haven't stopped coming in and Facebook messages.

"So we're now trying to redirect people to the Waterside, formerly Southbank Trent Bridge, who have decided, due to how much demand we're having, that they're going to try and take the overspill of that."

The pub has a 96-inch screen in its car park, along with others in its beer garden and inside - and staff have been inundated with bookings ahead of Sunday's game.

Sam Ditchfield, manager of the Trent Navigation. (Joseph Raynor/Nottingham Post)

Mr Ditchfield said: "We're completely at capacity now, with 200 people all booked in for that.

"There'll be 100 people in the car park, 50 in the beer garden watching on those two screens and 50 indoors."

Nottinghamshire Live reported last week that the pub had taken around 100 bookings for the Barnet match.

Explaining how the day turned out, Mr Ditchfield said: "Overall the Barnet game was a huge success, we did have walk-ins on top of the 100 and a couple of extra bookings.

"It was more like 120 in the end - that was what we ended up on.

"There were some people who were put off by the weather so we lost some and gained some others.

"Obviously the weather wasn't on our side that day but we still managed to make a good day of it."

A message was also left on the Facebook page of the Southbank Bar - Nottingham City, Friar Lane, in the run-up to the final.

It read: "(We're) really looking forward to the National League play-off final on Sunday.

"Thanks to the support of the County fans we are fully booked."

Meanwhile, Magpies fans have explained why their side might just have the edge over Harrogate - and police inspectors have advised Notts supporters against travelling down to Wembley.

The game on Sunday, broadcast live on BT Sport, kicks-off at 3pm.

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