We arrived at the champions centre in good time and were met and guided into a room covered in Forest memorabilia with the players taking in every detail  of the room  - (I could tell as they were all very quiet!!). We received the briefing from the Forest community team and flags were issued, we then sized off and split  into 2 lines  before being led around to the Trent end/main stand corner a few minutes before the big moment to practise for the big moment.

The time came to strip down to our red kit and be led on to the pitch and to take our position as the guard of honour outside the tunnel, the players excitement was clearly increasing as they absorbed the atmosphere from over 23,000 spectators took to their seats.

The moment finally  arrived and the flag waving increased to a feverish level as the music boomed out and Forest players walked through our guard of honour as they did our own players faces were a mixture from wide smiles ear to ear and others with mouths wide open as they stared at the Forest players. Our moment in the spotlight was over so a quick departure off the pitch warm clothes back on  and we took to our pitch side seats and watched a great game of football with Forest winning 3 – 1.

By performing the guard of honour and being able to facilitate this experience for our young players amongst other activities away from the very important regular training and match day experience I believe we as a club are keeping to our club ethos and developing the links within the local and wider football community. In addition the fact it’s a great promotion for the club as the playgrounds in the Toton area have been full of personal accounts of those involved which is always the best type of marketing for any club as we hope to encourage others to get involved with our club.

It does feel that our efforts to gain our FA Charter Standard club award have been rewarded as it’s not only this event we have taken advantage of but we have taken players to watch the England u18 game at Mansfield, Forest u18’s quarter finals and plan to take other players to the England u17 game later in March. All of which I believe aides the players development in the FA 4 corners Model as how can it not serve to enhance the desire to learn more about the game of football if you are just a few feet away from your football hero’s ?

I would finally like to thank Nottinghamshire FA and Nottingham Forest for this great opportunity.

A few quotes from some of the parents:

“Just wanted to say thank you to the Club for the opportunity to be involved at Nottingham Forest today. Libby had a great time, and is a very happy girl tonight.”

“Thank you to everyone at Toton Tornado's who went to the time and trouble of organising and looking after the kids today. Mikey really enjoyed the game and I'm struggling to get a word in edgeways.”

“Benj hyper with excitement!”