Adam Workman is an editor for The National from Gloucestershire. While much of the end of football season attention is usually devoted to title-winners like Chelsea or the glory of promotion and agony of relegation into and from the Premier League, Adam offers a take on the view from the lower ends of the league pyramid.
This past weekend, while Watford were celebrating joining the Premier League big boys and Chelsea and Arsenal were doing battle at the summit of English football, things were rather grimmer at the other end of the league pyramid.
Despite a pledge campaign by the club's players, Cheltenham Town slipped out of League Two and into non-league obscurity thanks to a 1-0 defeat by promotion-chasing Shrewsbury Town. For the past 13 seasons, Cheltenham were the sole Football League representatives of the county of my birth, Gloucestershire. Other interest was largely reduced to sporadic FA Cup heroics, such as Shortwood United's valiant efforts last season.
In the basement, the riches aren’t as rewarding, but the risks that come with failure are more terrifying. There are none of the multimillion-pound parachute payments for dropping from League 2 into the Conference that Premier League clubs receive if they’re relegated into the Championship; unsuccessful clubs frequently go to the wall. You only have to look as far as the plight of Hereford United from Gloucestershire’s neighboring county, Herefordshire – once Football League regulars and famed FA Cup giantkillers of Newcastle United in the 1970s. A last-day victory to keep them from relegation from the Conference last season was ultimately rendered immaterial – they were subsequently demoted for financial irregularities and, unable to pay their debts, ceased to exist before the 2014/15 season began.
It’s not all doom and gloom for the area, however. Almost-immediate salvation is at hand for Gloucestershire’s footballing prowess, in the shape of Forest Green Rovers. From the same southern Gloucestershire town as the aforementioned Shortwood United (Nailsworth; population: 5,800), Forest Green qualified for the Conference play-offs – just – with a 0-0 home draw against Dover Athletic on Saturday evening.
On Wednesday, they’ll face the biggest match of the club’s history to date: the first leg of the Conference play-off semi-finals, hosting Bristol Rovers, for a place in the final next month at Wembley Stadium to contest the real dangling carrot on offer: a place in the Football League.
Bristol is a mere 45 kilometres south-west of Nailsworth. Local rivalries still run deep at this level, despite crowd numbers habitually numbering in four (and sometimes three) figures, rather than five. In my youth, Cheltenham Town and Gloucester City were in the same lowly non-league division, but fans would often clash violently in the streets when the two teams met. Hopefully, that won’t prove a concern at this match. Bristol Rovers fans have a history as chequered as their club’s – various incidents of brawling; occupying three different stadiums in as many decades. But Forest Green have racked up more than one season without any arrests at their ground, the New Lawn (capacity 5,000; compare that with the previously quoted population of Nailsworth).
Perhaps that’s helped by the Forest Green’s fittingly green, right-thinking credentials. They’re bankrolled by their chairman Dale Vince, who made his millions through the environmentally friendly energy company Ecotricity, which is also the club’s shirt sponsor. With an organic pitch, solar panels, rainwater collection points and veggie-only food at the New Lawn, perhaps conscientious lefties the world over – as well as quality-football-starved Gloucestershire residents – should be backing Forest Green Rovers on Wednesday.
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