You best leave the Frazzles at home mate; they ain’t gonna be welcome here. For the first time since the heady days of November 2009, we make the trip cross country to Forest Green Rovers. Or Forest Gump Rovers, if you are – of course – a fan of the ‘done-to-death quip’ style of comedy. And look what difference the best part of a decade can make. Nowadays, the Gloucestershire side are everyone’s favourite meat-free mannschaft.
The world’s first vegan football club (that’s a thing now, right?) are striving to be “the world’s most sustainable football club”. We’re not sure that posting annual losses of £2.9m, £2.5m and now £2.1m fits that bill, but then we’re not accountants. The quest for Football League status has been an expensive one. It’s far from certain if it will pay off either; Rovers still with much to do to avoid joining Barnet in the Conference next season.
But let’s not help them keep their heads above water, eh? Leave that to someone else…
Forest Green Rovers v Stevenage: The Lowdown
The Referee
It’s rare for things to go our way when Graham Salisbury is the man in the middle, as you can see. That said, our results with him since returning to League Two is W L W L. This means we’re due a W to keep up appearances…
P9 W2 D1 L6 F9 A16; last result: Stevenage 0-1 Mansfield Town, 22/04/2017
The Head-to-Head
P28 W13 D10 L5 F55 A38; last result: Stevenage 1-2 Forest Green Rovers, 21/10/2017
The Opposition
It took 16 tries and 19 years, but Forest Green are no longer waiting for their first win at the Lamex; allowed to come from behind to claim all three points back in October. And, three-and-a-half months on, it still irritates us like a mysterious skin complaint. One that a doctor can’t explain, despite all their medical training. Before that game, we were averaging two goals a game against FGR. Now it’s a paltry 1.96 and needs urgent attention.
The Form
For our hosts, it’s not all bad news right now. If you can see past the small matter that is them being two points clear of the relegation zone, Forest Green are more hot than not. In some ways, anyway. Their home form over the past four games is better than high-flying Luton and Notts County. And, yet, we are also doing better than Luton – albeit when it comes to our last four on the road. How is no-one reeling them in at the top of the table?
Just two sides – Port Vale and Morecambe – have failed to score at The New Lawn this term. With only 13 goals in 16 matches on the road, Boro’ look on paper to be a side that’ll make it three. We got two of those, however, at Accrington. So, if you draw a graph or something like that, it’ll show explosive growth; 15% of our total away goal count for the season came from our last beano. And ain’t that something to behold…
• BoroGuide’s Forest Green Rovers club profile – may contain traces of beef, pheasant and duck…