Joe Jones: 'Notts County will not be outsung by Nottingham Forest'

With each passing day, we edge ever closer to the first fixture of the 2017/18 season - less than three weeks to go now, in fact.

Things are hotting up in pre-season too. Notts County have got the two "straightforward" friendlies out of the way, the ones effectively to get the players up to scratch physically and mentally, and now come the ones which are a little more "showpiece".

Starting on Wednesday with Nottingham Forest visiting Meadow Lane, which will also be the first time in the 2017/18 programme that the Black and White Army will be taking their seats at home.

Now, this time four years ago, we were hosting a Galatasaray side which featured two superstars of the world game - Wesley Sneijder and Didier Drogba. So it's a considerable step down, but hey, we will make do.

All jokes aside, it's always a lively occasion when Forest and Notts meet, even in pre-season. And this year, there will be loads of the Red Dogs in the ML stands, given the club's been taking up more and more of their ticket allocation and have now claimed all 6,359.

As good as it is to see people really getting behind a game, I can't help but laugh at how Forest fans have been going on about how the rivalry between them and Notts is all one-sided, that they really couldn't care less about Notts - yet their demand for tickets to the game has been sky-high, and there may well be plenty more "unaccounted for" Forest fans in the home stands.

So which is it? A nervous desire to see Forest hopefully hammer Notts, two leagues below them, to feel they have reasserted their quality following a humiliating season last time out? A way to alleviate the football fix they've been craving since the end of the season at a stadium next door to their own? Or am I being too harsh and really it's just about people coming together to celebrate Nottingham football?

Whatever the reason, it'll be good to be back at the Lane and see a rejuvenated Notts side come up against a Forest side also going through a transition period. With Kevin Nolan able to assert his programme throughout the whole pre-season, and the small games out of the way, this will be a challenge, taking on a team two divisions above (just about).

I can imagine Nolan being very much an active, shouty kind of manager, really getting into his players' faces, barking orders at them and demanding perfection, and also motivating his players Martin Allen style, so the Notts players should be really up for this one and will not want to let the home fans down. Given how angry Nolan was to see Notts lose in the final game of last season - which was a dead rubber - it bodes well for players giving their all, especially in high-profile friendlies like on Wednesday.

So it should be a cracking occasion where both teams will really test their opponent, as well as the crucial matter of bragging rights - stakes will not be high in a sense of outcome, but Notts will have made the stakes high in his players' heads. And Red Dogs - don't expect to outsing us, don't expect to outplay us, and good luck outscoring us. We might be a tougher proposition than you think!

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