Alfreton Town gave a good account of themselves against a strong Nottingham Forest side in their first pre-season friendly at the Impact Arena on Saturday, whilst welcoming spectators for the first time in 16 months.

Brennan Johnson gave the visitors an 18th minute lead, when he ran on to Lewis Grabban's through-ball to steer past George Willis in the Reds' goal.

A lot of the first half action was locked in midfield, with Forest always looking the more likely team to make the breakthrough.

There was though one particular chance for the hosts that saw Matt Rhead lay the ball off for Bobby Johnson to fire over from 20 yards in the 39th minute.

Both teams made wholesale changes for the second half, with each fielding a younger side than had opened proceedings, and this seemed to ignite the home side into producing their best spell of the encounter.

A handful of corners early in the second half provided the sighter that Michael Williams needed to pick out Adam Lund in the 55th minute, whose lay-off allowed Shaun Tuton to ram home the equaliser.

Moments earlier Tuton had charged down an attempted clearance from keeper Jordan Smith, who did well to recover from an awkward situation.

Ollie Hammond responded for Forest with a stinging drive that rattled the crossbar on the hour, but Alfreton continued to match their more illustrious opponents with determination.

Williams drove the ball straight at Smith from a George Cowan pass 12 minutes from time, but with just 120 seconds left on the clock up popped Will Swan to guide the ball past sub keeper Teddy Unwin-Marris to give the Championship side their win.

There was still time for Tuton to send Rio Molyneux scampering to the by-line, but his astute cross was fired well wide by an unnamed trialist.

ALFRETON [First-half]: Willis; Clackstone, Wilde, Branson, D.Smith, Allan, Bradley, Evans, Bobby Johnson, Rhead, Reeves.

[Second-half]: Unwin-Marris; Lund, Stewart, Grice, Cowan, Cummings, Molyneux, Hobson, Tuton, Trialist, Trialist

FOREST [First-half]: Samba; Mbe Soh, Barnes, Fernandes, Lawrence-Gabriel, Colback, Yates, Mighten, Brennan Johnson, Konate, Grabban.

[Second-half]: J.Smith; Fornah, Rama, Hammond, Back, Richardson, Swan, Carvalho, Da Costa, Cafu, Blackett.

Referee: Jamie O'Connor
Attendance: 805 (638 away)