Prior to the beginning of the season Nottingham Forest Women were fully integrated into the wider football department of Nottingham Forest moving to a professional hybrid model for the 2023/24 season as phase one of a strategy to create a full-time professional team.[2]
This transition brought multiple changes to the clubs staff. Amber Wildgust was appointed as Head of Women's and Girls Football,[3] Carly Davies was appointed as Head Coach[4] and Dave Long was appointed as Head of Girls Academy.[5]
This was the first season that the club used Grange Park in Long Eaton as their main home ground after 4 years at Halbrooke Stadium in Eastwood.[6]
Forest started the season strongly with successive league victories over Stourbridge (home, 7-0), West Bromwich Albion (away, 1-4), and AFC Fylde (home, 3-1) and a 5-0 away win against Solihull Moors to progress to the FA Women’s National League Cup first round and defend their 2022-2023 crown.
September and October proved to be challenging for Carly Davies’ side, however, with an FA Women’s National League Cup second-round home 2-1 win over Wolverhampton Wanderers and home 5-0 league win over Liverpool Feds sitting between league defeats over promotion rivals Burnley (away, 4-2), local rivals Derby County at (home, 1-2), and a Women’s National League Cup third-round away 3-0 defeat against eventual beaten finalists Newcastle United.
Forest responded by winning 10 of their next 11 matches including four Women's FA Cup wins against Sheffield FC (home, 7-0), Sporting Khalsa (home, 3-2), Boldmere St Michaels (home, 3-1) and Plymouth Argyle (away, 1-6) to set up a fifth-round proper tie against Women’s Super League outfit Everton. This run (of which the only loss was a 0-1 home defeat against league leaders Newcastle United) left the side in 2nd place (four points behind Newcastle).
Carly Davies’ side was unable to take their momentum from eight consecutive wins into the Women’s FA Cup fifth-round tie against Everton with the Women’s Super League side running out comfortable 1-7 winners at Grange Park with Forest generating £123,000 in revenue from their furthest run in the competition since the 2012-2013 season. Forest was unable to rebuild the momentum they created between November 2023 and February 2024 for their final nine FA Women’s National League Northern Premier League fixtures and took only 17 points from a possible 27 and finished their title defence in 3rd place on 47 points (1 point behind 2nd placed Burnley and 12 points behind champions Newcastle United), missing out on promotion to the Women’s Championship for another season.[7][8]
Updated to match(es) played on 5 May 2024. Source: The Football Association Rules for classification: 1) Points; 2) Goal difference; 3) Number of goals scored (C) Champions; (P) Promoted