Football Poets

Where do I start ?
Many will shout me down, but hey, we’re not the first fans to not want to move from our longtime home.

However, for anyone living outside of leafy Gloucestershire, Forest Green Rovers are that strange little vegan and sustainable village team you might have read about, scoffed at or admired .We watch and play on top of a ridiculously steep hill with a lovely view, organic pitch, electric chargers, totally vegan food and a friendly solar powered mower called Mowbot.

We’re quite used to away fans’ predictably derisory chants. eg; When we fall over, are fouled or tripped, we are called grass -munchers, which is one of the nicer ones. Our chairman is millionaire New Age hippy and Ecotricity owner Dale Vince who literally saved us back in 2010 .

It may all sound lovely to the outsider, with plaudits for commitment to all things green from around the world including the United Nations. But not all is well at ground level in Dingley Dell, well above Nailsworth, near Stroud actually. Lately the anti-move chants, regarding our proposed re-location and the building of the first ever wooden stadium, have rung out across the valley from home fans .This largely from those standing in the South Stand where I still drum along with Jack the main drummer , and who I was drumming along much more with til most stopped singing along!

With final building approval still very much in the balance, opinion and the atmosphere has sadly become at times toxic and deeply divided betwen fans in favour of and those against a move away (after 130 years ) from our little very non-league looking little ground to an eco-built ground adjoining the M5 Stroud turn off. So much so, that many loyal and once the core of FGR’s most vociferous fans have voted with their feet . Their absence and the all time low in atmosphere at games has not gone un-noticed or felt by the players who we are still 100% behind, but it has definitely coincided with and many feel impacted upon our worst ever run of games (2 wins in 19.)

Barely months ago in in October and with League 1 or the play offs at least seemingly well within our grasp, we were top. Top above the likes of far more established sides like Swindon, Walsall, Bradford City, Exeter, Plymouth, Grimsby, Newport , Northampton, Colchester, Crewe , Mansfield , Port Vale and even our close neighbours Cheltenham . Now however, we have plummeted to 10th and confidence is at a new low. Is it a coincidence ? Our manager Mark Cooper says the team actually prefer playing away , which is awful. It’s hard work .

Me ? Bottom line. Much as I like the new design and all things eco I’d love us to somehow stay where we are, however impractical.

*Nortonwood:
Nortonwood runs to the existing New Lawn ground from just off the mighty Spring Hill, which climbs from the village of Nailsworth to Forest Green. Although we are told it is not feasible full-stop to stay here, but no plan has even really been thoroughly explored to stay. Plans for the new ground are to move to next to Junction 13 of the M5 right by the Stroud turn off.

** somewhere warm and clean (for away fans)
Our facilites for away fans are sadly still a disgrace . A little marquee in the cold masquerading as a bar for clubs who have brought over 1000 fans here on many occasions. They aslo face the prospect of standing on a bitterly cold roofless, wind and rainswept terrace with a small token-gesture green bus shelter type cover for about 100 seated.

***with a ceiling and with heat:
The South Stand which gets no sun, is always freezing even in August and there is no actual ceiling on the toilet. OK, it’s not just open sky above it but it feels like it.

****Q Pie : Forest Green’s Award Winning Quorn Pie which used to come with mash, peas and gravy is now only with chips or gravy for us guys. It’s not that radical a request and I can handle it but I’m just putting the facts out there!

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