The Black Cats visit Forest, twice European champions in their heyday under Brian Clough, on July 30 as part of their pre-season schedule.

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Reid started his career at the City Ground before earning a £4million move to Spurs in January, 2005.

And he's delighted it will be a happy homecoming after Sunderland's Premier League survival and Forest's promotion from League One.

"It'll be great going back," said Reid.

"I'm pleased that Forest have taken that first step up. There have been a lot of changes there since I left but there are a lot of good people at the club and it's been a difficult time for them.

"When you look at things they've achieved in the past it has been hard for the Forest fans, but hopefully they can build towards getting back up with the top clubs again."

Reid hopes to see Forest back into the elite but admits it will get harder and harder for clubs coming up from the Championship to compete.

At the same time, he insists Sunderland can only get stronger after sealing their Premier League survival.

Forest fell from the elite in 1999 and endured three seasons in League One as one of the biggest clubs to have competed at that level for many years.

Leicester City – who challenged in the top half the top flight and played in Europe as recently as 2001 – suffered the same fall from grace this season when they plunged from the Championship, with former Premier stalwarts Coventry and Southampton just surviving in the Championship.

As the chasm between the Premier League and Football League continues to widen and megabucks TV deals guarantee clubs an estimated £60million jackpot, Reid believes survival could change Sunderland's destiny.

He said: "You only have to look at clubs like Forest and Leicester – very good clubs, big clubs – to see how difficult it is when you go out of the Premier League nowadays.

"Even with the parachute payments that clubs get when they're relegated from the Premier League, these clubs go down with bigger squads and higher wage bills to support and it's not always easy to adjust quickly.

"The club will still have to work hard every season to stay in the Premier League but staying up has given the club a great chance to get even stronger.

"The gap between the Premier League and Championship is going to grow every year. The better players will be in this league and it will get harder for the Championship clubs to get the quality in.

"The Championship is a very hard, competitive league and even if you go down and keep most of your squad together, there are no guarantees of coming back quickly.

"It's a huge thing for this club to make sure it's in the Premier League again. Clubs like Southampton and Coventry, even Sheffield Wednesday and Leeds, have been in the top league for a lot of my life and you can see how difficult it has been for them since they went out of the Premier League.

"It just shows how important it is for us to stay up there."