A group of tourists sit beneath a Nottingham Forest supporters’ flag draped on the wall of Smithfield Hall in New York City. It’s the first thing you see when you step into this unassuming soccer bar in Midtown Manhattan.
Smithfield Hall sells itself as being “just a few blocks from the world-famous Madison Square Garden,” making it a convenient stop for passersby looking for a quick meal. But, for the place’s usual crowd, it’s the sense of community they come for.
For Forest fans in New York, the bar is a refuge, 5,000 miles from the city some of them once called home. It’s also where these fans, long considered what they’ve described as outcasts in English football, enjoy what has been one of their team’s most memorable seasons in decades.
The flag and Forest fans in Smithfield Hall (Melanie Anzidei/The Athletic)
Forest are fourth in the Premier League, a sharp contrast to their relegation battles of the past two years, let alone the two decades spent in the second and third tiers of English football. On Sunday, they travel to London’s Wembley Stadium, where they face Manchester City in an FA Cup semi-final. The two sides are also part of a cluster of teams in a tight race to secure Champions League qualification for next season.
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If Forest claim one of the Premier League’s five places, they will return to Europe’s top competition for the first time since 1980, when they were the defending champions after winning back-to-back finals. It would mean everything for their fans watching on from New York.
“It’s magical,” says Karl Hudson, 48, who founded NFFCNYC some 15 years ago. “We all can’t believe it … and we’re not getting laughed at for once!”
West Ham United fans fill one end of the bar for their match against Bournemouth, which kicks off at 10 a.m Eastern. By afternoon, they will make room for members of a Barcelona supporters’ group for their team’s 3 p.m clash with Real Betis.
Hungry tourists who dropped in for breakfast are replaced by a steady stream of Forest fans arriving for the 12.30 p.m match with Aston Villa. The group is mostly a mix of New Yorkers from around the world commuting into Midtown, or the occasional tourist who got wind of this Forest-leaning bar. Some of these people are best friends, others are fathers accompanied by their sons.
“We say we are the City of Rebels, just a bunch of randoms who came together through this football club,” says Hudson. “It really brought us all together and (I’m) just really, really thankful that it did.”
Hudson is the reason a Forest flag hangs inside Smithfield Hall, but his story begins around 2011, when he moved to New York from England. The creative director, who started his own company, The Forest Studio, 20 years ago, suddenly found himself without access to his favorite club.
Hudson started the fan group in 2010 (Karl Hudson)
“It just became more real for me when I couldn’t go to games anymore,” he says. “You’re in a foreign country, (and) you either do something about it or not.”
In his early days living in New York, Hudson would watch games at Woodwork in Brooklyn. Another soccer bar, it was a haven for Arsenal fans. “They kind of took to me, just because I was English,” Hudson recalls, with a laugh. Staff even let him put up a Forest flag outside and offered him a dedicated TV, “right in the back,” to watch Forest’s games.
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But Woodwork eventually closed, and Hudson was back to square one. It was by pure chance that he began working across the street from Smithfield Hall and would drop in there on Friday afternoons to catch Forest matches from the second-tier Championship on BeIN Sports. A lone Forest fan, he admired the community around the supporters’ groups that would congregate there for Manchester United, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and West Ham games.
“I’ve always aspired to have that,” Hudson said.
He then got talking with one of Smithfield’s part-owners, Kieron Slattery, who said something that stayed with him.
Hudson remembers Slattery marvelling, “Years ago, one person walked in here with a Barcelona jersey on … and now look at it.”
That’s essentially what happened with NFFCNYC, too.
More Forest fans would recognize each other during games each week and pretty soon, there was a crowd of 85 of them watching their FA Cup quarter-final against Liverpool in March 2022. “The bar just became our home,” Hudson said.
Another big 3 points‼️ #nffcnyc
Ignore the bloke with the Derby kit, no idea how he got in there???😦🥴 pic.twitter.com/2YF0aHj7Au
— Nottingham Forest – New York City (@NFFCNYC) March 15, 2025
Slattery and Thomas McCarthy are the co-owners of Smithfield Hall. They’ve been in the soccer-bar business for years, with McCarthy previously owning the old Nevada Smith’s, considered one of the original spots to watch the sport in New York. They would have a big satellite dish on the roof to enable them to show games, Slattery says. It was “a different era.”
But what hasn’t changed over the years is the community that grows around rooting for one’s favorite club.
“That’s the great thing about football. It’s a global game, so you get all walks of life,” Slattery adds. “You’ll get some MIT grad sitting beside some construction guy watching the same team, talking to each other. Your politics are genuinely left outside the door and you’re just there for one reason: to support your team.”
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Even Slattery, a Manchester United fan, can’t help having a soft spot for Forest after the season they have had: “I hope they get to the Champions League, and I hope they win the FA Cup. What a lot of people forget about Forest is back in the ’70s (and) ’80s, they were a big team. Until (Real) Madrid did it, Forest were the last team to win back-to-back European Cups.”
The supporters group Hudson started in New York started with just him and has expanded into a 300-strong community. There are further groups that span North America, setting up in cities across the U.S. and Canada. Part of the growth was organic, especially as fans moved around the continent, as Hudson did last year when he relocated to Chicago.
Interest in Forest has exploded over the past six years, particularly when they returned to the Premier League in 2022 after being outside the top flight since the late 1990s. Annual meetups in places such as Chicago began drawing fans from Toronto, Salt Lake City and Los Angeles. Some fans would even organize trips to England to watch Forest play live.
It wasn’t long before people back in Nottingham were hearing about Smithfield and traveling there to catch a game with their supporters group. The group has its own merchandise and plans annual meet-ups with other groups in North America. One of the most memorable highlights for NFFCNYC was when former Forest players Garry Birtles and Guy Moussi stopped by in New York to catch a game.
Forest fans in Chicago (Karl Hudson)
Forest supporters “are all over,” Hudson said. “Particularly this season, it’s gone from, ‘I’ve never heard of that team. Are you in the Premier League?’ to, ‘I really hope you guys get Champions League. It would be great for soccer’.”
The reasons people have for being Forest fans vary. Some like to root for the underdog. Some are born into a Forest-supporting family or are simply from Nottingham. No matter the reason, though, there is a sense of loyalty.
One fan, from Long Island, N.Y., said his brother told him to pick a Premier League team to follow. So he was practical. He looked down at the league table and recognized Jesse Lingard’s name on Forest’s roster. While Lingard is no longer with the club, the guy has remained faithful ever since.
“No rhyme or reason,” he says, with a laugh. “I didn’t pick Forest. Forest picked me.”
Hudson with former Forest players Garry Birtles, fourth right, and Guy Moussi, third right (Karl Hudson)
Another fan, Tamir March, 26, says he lived in England until he was seven, before his family moved to the States. At four years old, he made the very adult decision to root for the team that played in Robin Hood’s hometown.
This community is like “a little corner of Nottingham in the Big Apple,” as Hudson likes to say, and this season is one they’ll look back on in the same way they cherish those Forest teams who conquered Europe in 1979 and 1980.
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“It’s just quite nice to be taking it all in and basking in glory — apart from today,” says Hudson, as Forest slip to a 2-1 defeat against Aston Villa.
But Hudson hopes Forest will get their revenge in the FA Cup final back at Wembley on May 17, should they both progress from the last four (Villa face Crystal Palace in the other semifinal on Saturday). Local fans are expected to fill Smithfield Hall, with several watch parties planned around the country. There is also a larger meetup planned in Columbus, Ohio, home of the ‘Ohio Trickies,’ who have organized a weekend filled with a Premier League watch party and a tailgate at a Columbus Crew MLS game, all capped by the FA Cup semifinal on Sunday morning at 11:30 Eastern.
“I do think it all happens for a reason,” Hudson adds. “So now I’m going for, we’ll get Villa in the final at Wembley. They’ll think they’re going to beat us because they beat us today, and hopefully we’ll be triumphant.
“It’s the hope that kills you, isn’t it?”
(Top photo: Forest fans in Chicago. Credit: Karl Hudson)
This news was originally published on this post .
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