Woking FC 0 – Forest Green Rovers 2
Rupert Hacker is a Katharine Lady Berkeley’s School Ambassador for Forest Green Rovers.
Ten games. It’s the measure that they traditionally say you need before you can start to see where the season is going and Saturday’s game, away at Woking FC, marked that moment.
Back again at the top of the National League and obviously fit enough to give our old rivals Cheltenham Town, stuck at the bottom of League Two, a proper thrashing, FGR is the league leader by one point.
Since the first game away at Solihull, we have seen seven wins and three draws, leaving us and Scunthorpe as the only teams in the league to have not tasted defeat. Statistically, with 24 out of the possible 30 points, our performance scores a nice round percentage of 80 per cent.
But we don’t follow FGR because we like maths. As Robbie Savage said when he took on the job, he wanted to bring the fun back to forest Green – and get the message across the football has to be about entertainment, above everything else.
There are a few fans who might disagree with that though and their years of following Forest Green has made the club an important place for them to pursue their hobby of being on Morrissey levels of miserable.
The pessimism they feel is nothing unique in football: it was worth noting at Woking on Saturday that one of their stands is called Moaners’ Corner. I did hear one of her own fans say he wanted to visit it, maybe because so far this season FGR might make you feel a bit nostalgic for the old days when we never won at home, and we never won away. We have to have compassion for these fans during this hard time because all this winning is exhausting.
At some point though, we are going to lose a game and there’s almost a sense among some fans that we should get on with that and get it out of the way.
Maybe that’s because last season we seemed to develop a love for draws, so do or die is good and it’s just the numbing dead zone of shared points we should fear. After all, the odd zero actually adds up to being better than frequent single points.
What’s brilliant to see though is that Cotterill pattern of managing games is ancient history: we don’t now play safely. Even when the team were two goals up and close to the end yesterday, there was never a sense of ‘parking the bus’. Even if that meant Woking were given the odd chance. No, they played on and played hard.
So, 80 per cent on points eight out of ten overall so far as a percentage, seven out of ten for actual match wins.
And for the decision to ignore all the media chatter and hand Robbie Savage this opportunity? That’s a 10 all day.
FGR play Altrincham away on Tuesday evening this week, with a massive game then following next Saturday when the mighty(?) York come to The New Lawn. York have had the setback of postponed games and a manager sacking already and their early results have not exactly gone to script. Will FGR be another bump in their road for 2026 promotion hopes? The club has good reasons to fear the Green Army: in their visit last November, we beat them 2-0 and this March, away at York, we held the Minstermen to a draw. It will be a huge day and the biggest so far of the season – don’t miss it!
