The Shiny Happy People from Gloucestershire

Bath City have drawn Forest Green Rovers for a home match next week in the Second Round of the FA Cup. The selection was actually almost two weeks ago, but because Forest Green and Mansfield Town failed to produce a result in their Frist Round match, City could not be sure who their opponents would be until the replay two days ago. The FA Cup draw itself, on the day after the Grimsby Town match, found me and the Nedved Juniors gathered around the telly again after Sunday lunch. This time instead of City being drawn in the first few minutes we had to wait until nearly the end. It was not until the teams were selected for match number eighteen (of twenty) that Bath City's ball was drawn. My first reaction, after I stopped shaking from anticipation, was to purse my lips and say, 'hmmmmmm.' The draw meant that the next round would be Bath City vs Mansfield Town or Bath City vs FGR. Which is better? I couldn't decide. Fortunately it was not up to me. Thanks to a stoppage time goal Tuesday night, we will now will play our Gloucestershire neighbours.

Forest Green Rovers play one league above Bath City in what is known as the Conference National. That is still 'non-league' football, so it is not the glamour fixture City fans had been hoping for. Still, if City could beat the 23rd placed team in League 2 in the first round, then they should be able square up against the 21st placed team from a league lower down. A win would see City through to the Third Round, which is when the Premiership teams enter the competition. Might City be playing at Old Trafford in the new year? Before that dream can even be contemplated, though, there is the matter of City's second round opponents. And who are these guys, anyway? Ten years ago I would have probably assumed 'Forest Green Rovers' was some sort of Canadian law-enforcement unit. After a decade after living within thirty miles of their ground, and I'm not sure I know much more than that.

My only encounter with anything FGR since moving to England was on a Sunday morning six years ago. I was trying to take the train to work, but due to some engineering works the train between Bath Spa and Bristol Temple Meads was replaced by a coach service. I don't' know why or how, but the coach I boarded that morning for my commute was the Forest Green Rovers players coach. The rail company must have hired the coach company that provided FGR's away travel. The seats were not in a standard coach formation - they were in groups of four facing each other around tables. My overriding memory of that coach, though, was how tatty it was. The seats were covered in '70s style brown velure that looked like it had actually been in place since the '70s. The tables the players must have played cards on during their travels had artificial wood laminate on top that had been worn until a series of lurid orange streaks ran across them. There was a nice, shiny FGR badge on the outside, but the inside of the coach was repulsive.

This was years before I became a non-league fan. Looking back on it I have two questions: (1) How in the world does a non-league club like Forest Green Rovers have its own coach with its own team badge on the side? (2) How could FGR go to the expense of having a designated team coach and not stump up a few hundred quid to recover the seats? It seemed a very odd thing for a football club to splurge on such an extravagant mode of transport and then use it to move their team around in squalor.

My re-acquaintance with Forest Green Rovers continues to turn up strange contradictions. FGR are an archetypal village club come good. They are located on the edge of the Gloucestershire village of Nailsworth (population 6,600). This means that FGR should have roughly the same economic clout as Willand Rovers, the club City met in the Second Qualifying Round (who play three leagues below City). For a club from such a small community to have broken into a the Conference National is nothing short of incredible. It's an accomplishment that the people of Goucestershire can point to with pride.

It is, however, an accomplishment with an explanation. For nearly twenty years Rovers have benefited from an ambitious and well funded chairman, Trevor Horsley. After joining the club in 1992, when it was facing closure from financial difficulties, he has almost single-handedly brought the club the success it enjoys today. As Forest Green's website unashamedly says:

The future looks bright and it is all down to the driving ambition and vision of one man, Trevor Horsley.

You can't blame FGR for benefiting from a successful and generous chairman. It would also be wrong to assume that the club's success is just a matter of money. An awful lot of hard work has gone into back-to-back promotions in the late nineties and a new stadium this decade. Just throwing money at a club won't achieve that. Still....

I can't help but find the club Trevor Horsley has built with his driving ambition and vision slightly unnerving. Everything seems too nice and too clean. For a 'villiage club,' everything is very corporate. The website is very slick and very 'official.' Pictures of the ground, 'the New Lawn,' show squeaky-clean, state-of-the-art stands that look like they just came out of the packing crate (and if I was a betting man I'd bet the coach has been refurbished, too). The online fan forum is very polite, but very quiet. Combine all of this with the personality-cult language about the chairman, and the club sounds more like it should be named the 'Hermit Kingdom Rovers.'

In order to find out just what FGR are all about, and why I find them so strange, I decided to do what passes for investigative journalism on this blog. I registered for their forum myself (which creepily requires you to tell them your real name, address and contact telephone number!) and ask them, 'What are you all like?'

So far the most revealing answer is from a fan who calls himself 'tomb.' When explaining what FGR fans are like he said:

One of the benefits of being a village side (albeit with a new stadium) is that we are incredibly civilised. That's partly because the average age of our supporters is about 70. If we cause any trouble, you don't need to worry as we soon fall off our zimmer frames. Seriously, we are so nice, we are famous for it. Usually, after half time at home games, we announce how many away supporters are in the ground. We then CLAP them. Its surreal. I've never seen it anywhere else.

After reading this I can't help but imagine that the New Lawn feels like an annex to a retirement home. A retirement home with driving ambition, of course.

Retirement homes are nice enough places to pass the day, I suppose, although it is not my favourite sort of place. Still, it sounds like the Forrest Green fans are nice and respectable people. I'm sure we'll all have a good day out on 28 November. And, let's be honest, FGR aren't going to be any more excited by the fixture than we are. The thing that makes the fixture exciting is not the game itself, but the chance to be in the hat for the next round.

Come on City!