Gloucestershire's best team for 34 years v Gloucestershire's 2nd best team for 21 years

[CTFCfan99]

One positive from all this is that our entire fanbase seems to be having its biggest meltdown in years (and our fans are well known for their meltdowns). It's quite entertaining reading all the comments on our forum/twitter/facebook.

 

[The Jovial Forester]

Was reading a few of the "should Johnson go?" comments; from the outside seems mad as he looks to be doing well with what he has but obviously saw the comments about uninspiring home form.

 

[CTFCfan99]

A lot of our fans don't seem to understand that for a club our size and with our budget, mid-table in league two actually isn't that bad. Yes we all want to aim higher and challenge for the playoffs but it'll take time and it's not going to happen that way every year.

Yesterday wasn't a good performance at all, but I've never seen an ovvereation quite like this!

 

[Chris FGR]

Johnson's a top manager, and a good bloke.

You'd be mad to get rid of him. Don't think many others wold be doing better with that budget.

 

[FGR Stroud]

Chris, that is out of order.
They will remind all that for near 30 years they have been top team in Gloucestershire as this title says.
I'd prefer to wave them goodbye when FGR are promoted to EFL1 as assuredly they will in next year or so.

 

[Si Robin]

Yeah - it's much easier getting out of League 2, or so we were told last May.

And it's definitely over 30 years (maths, or simple reading, not your strong point, clearly).

 

[FGR Stroud]

Yeah - it's much easier getting out of League 2, or so we were told last May.

And it's definitely over 30 years (maths, or simple reading, not your strong point, clearly).

2 promotion places up from Conference but 4 promotion places from EFL2 to EFL1.
2 relegation places down to Conference and 4 down to Conference (N or S)
Seems my maths is okay.
Cheltenham have I grant you had better of last three decades over FGR but not this season - 2 away wins at Whaddon Road and still with half a chance of bettering Cheltenham in league standings.

 

[UTS]

Imagine having your main rivals as Forest Green... Christ... feel for Cheltenham. Gloucester City need to get their act together.

 

[Chris FGR]

Imagine having your main rivals as Forest Green... Christ... feel for Cheltenham. Gloucester City need to get their act together.

 

[Si Robin]

Imagine having your main rivals as Forest Green... Christ... feel for Cheltenham. Gloucester City need to get their act together.

We can but dream of those halcyon days.

Sadly, the vast majority of our fanbase will barely even know, let alone remember, the promotion battle with Gloucester in 96/97, and now cling to this pathetic thing with FGR because we've not had a rival for so long. When a number of our fans consider Rushden and Diamonds as a rival, you know how desperate we've become.

Gloucester City are our true rivals, forget the football, it's a rivalry between the areas, and if they do get their act together and make their way up the leagues, then derby days really will be something to look forward to.

Unfortunately, until that happens (if it ever does), we're stuck with a team who can't even 3/4 fill an away end 20 miles down the road.

 

[UTS]

We can but dream of those halcyon days.

Sadly, the vast majority of our fanbase will barely even know, let alone remember, the promotion battle with Gloucester in 96/97, and now cling to this pathetic thing with FGR because we've not had a rival for so long. When a number of our fans consider Rushden and Diamonds as a rival, you know how desperate we've become.

Gloucester City are our true rivals, forget the football, it's a rivalry between the areas, and if they do get their act together and make their way up the leagues, then derby days really will be something to look forward to.

Unfortunately, until that happens (if it ever does), we're stuck with a team who can't even 3/4 fill an away end 20 miles down the road.

Aye Gloucester are probably limited by the Rugby which is a shame as that would be the true ‘Glous Derby’.

Do they still ground share at Whaddon Road? A new ground for them and a bit of investment and who knows.. a long shot I know but it’s an affluent area with a decent sized population... potential is there... maybe one day.

Must be hard to drum up any genuine reciprocal hatred towards an eco club which represent a town of 5,000 people in the middle of nowhere. If they only brought 750 on a sunny Saturday afternoon on their first FL visit then give it a few years and they will be down to 400 away fans.

 

[Chris FGR]

We do have history with Cheltenham, we played in the same league as them for two decades in the early 20th century. We aren't proper rivals though, quite a few Cheltenham fans used to watch us before Vince/Ecotricity took over and we became a threat.

 

[Greenacres]

Gloucester City currently play their games at Evesham, which is even further away than Cheltenham, or Forest Green where they played for a season...but maybe not quite as far as Cirencester where they also lodged. I really feel for City, despite being a Rovers fan, for them to have been playing away from their real home for more than a decade and still exist is little short of a miracle. I think they have started building a new ground, on the land where the old one stood, but haven't a clue when that might be ready for them.

The issue we have in this area is the egg-chasing, which seems to hoover up a lot of people who are inclined to go and watch sport...you would need to put me into a coma to get me anywhere near a rugby ground. The only thing that goes in our favour, as football fans, is the amount of new house building currently underway. I guess it is fair to assume that many of the people who move in will be from outside the area and possibly more inclined to go and watch football rather than rugby, it is just up to our respective clubs to try and attract them.

 

[The Jovial Forester]

Nothing against Cheltenham myself but the idea that they're some billy big bollocks club reduced to having us as rivals is laughable, spent all of fifteen years longer in the league, whoop-di-do.

 

[Chris FGR]

Anyway, given our south stand bods ran their chavs through town, I would say we asserted our dominance on AND off the pitch on Saturday.

HARK NOW HEAR THE ROVERS SING THE CHELTENHAM RAN AWAY! And we will sing forever more because of derby day!

We're the ones that need to find bigger and better rivals.

 

[Si Robin]

Nothing against Cheltenham myself but the idea that they're some billy big bollocks club reduced to having us as rivals is laughable, spent all of fifteen years longer in the league, whoop-di-do.

17 years, and no-one is claiming we're a billy big-bollocks club. That the majority of Cheltenham fans older than about 15 don't consider FGR a proper rival is nothing to do with club size but about knowing our club's history.

I was annoyed we lost on Saturday, but no more so than had we lost to Cambridge, Luton or Carlisle. Who we played had no bearing because I don't consider Forest Green Rovers our "derby" in the strictest sense. I was one of those people who used to come over to The New Lawn before Dale Vince took over, got the shirt to prove it as well.

Had we been playing Gloucester City in a Football League game, regardless of our position in the table, we would have sold more than 4,000 home tickets (something we didn't do on Saturday) and I have no doubt that even a club averaging 3-400 at the moment would have sold out the 1,100 seater stand behind that goal, and if we lost to them, God knows I'd be smarting over it until we play them next.

 

[Chris FGR]

You might not care, but a lot of your fans are obsessed with us for some reason. So there's definitely some needle there now.

And we used to play in the same league in the late 10's, 20's and early 30's so you can't say there is no history to this game.

I agree Gloucester should be your main rivals but it's been so long a lot of your younger fans don't know who Gloucester even are.

 

[The Jovial Forester]

17 years, and no-one is claiming we're a billy big-bollocks club. That the majority of Cheltenham fans older than about 15 don't consider FGR a proper rival is nothing to do with club size but about knowing our club's history.

I was annoyed we lost on Saturday, but no more so than had we lost to Cambridge, Luton or Carlisle. Who we played had no bearing because I don't consider Forest Green Rovers our "derby" in the strictest sense. I was one of those people who used to come over to The New Lawn before Dale Vince took over, got the shirt to prove it as well.

Had we been playing Gloucester City in a Football League game, regardless of our position in the table, we would have sold more than 4,000 home tickets (something we didn't do on Saturday) and I have no doubt that even a club averaging 3-400 at the moment would have sold out the 1,100 seater stand behind that goal, and if we lost to them, God knows I'd be smarting over it until we play them next.

Not aimed at you so much as this Bury fan; you could probably stop 100 people in the street in Greater Manchester and ask them to name a football club and noone would say Bury.

 

[FGR Stroud]

There will be a sending off and there will be a penalty

No sending off and only three yellow cards.
No penalty either.

 

[FGR Stroud]

Not aimed at you so much as this Bury fan; you could probably stop 100 people in the street in Greater Manchester and ask them to name a football club and noone would say Bury.

Bury already relegated and this fan is probably checking out future opposition.
He will find, same as Cheltenham, that the village club are no pushovers.

 

[FGR Stroud]

17 years, and no-one is claiming we're a billy big-bollocks club. That the majority of Cheltenham fans older than about 15 don't consider FGR a proper rival is nothing to do with club size but about knowing our club's history.

I was annoyed we lost on Saturday, but no more so than had we lost to Cambridge, Luton or Carlisle. Who we played had no bearing because I don't consider Forest Green Rovers our "derby" in the strictest sense. I was one of those people who used to come over to The New Lawn before Dale Vince took over, got the shirt to prove it as well.

Had we been playing Gloucester City in a Football League game, regardless of our position in the table, we would have sold more than 4,000 home tickets (something we didn't do on Saturday) and I have no doubt that even a club averaging 3-400 at the moment would have sold out the 1,100 seater stand behind that goal, and if we lost to them, God knows I'd be smarting over it until we play them next.

Interesting to read your opinions reference attendances.
FGR could and would have had many more supporters at game but when it became all ticket that deterred some and there was a weekend rail shut down between Stroud & Cheltenham which also prevented many FGR fans from outside the county attending match.

The attendance figures you abandoned about are simply your own opinion. You could be right but we will not know until Gloucester City become a football league team. [And that is very unlikely for the foreseeable future]

Two figures are certain and that is Cheltenham will have better home attendances this season but that FGRs attendances are the best ever and have drastically improved over the past few years.
I suspect Cheltenham will continue to have better attendances at WR until FGR move to new stadium whereupon our figures would improve to be closer to those of Gloucester Rugby than those of Cheltenham.

 

[UTS]

Not aimed at you so much as this Bury fan; you could probably stop 100 people in the street in Greater Manchester and ask them to name a football club and noone would say Bury.

Well, it depends which part of Greater Manchester you go to doesn’t it

Funnily enough there’s a Bury fan on your own messageboard, we do get about. Goes by the name ‘Pitchfork’. We will also comfortably average more fans at home and away than FGR will next season... which isn’t anything special.

 

[The Jovial Forester]

Well, it depends which part of Greater Manchester you go to doesn’t it

Funnily enough there’s a Bury fan on your own messageboard, we do get about. Goes by the name ‘Pitchfork’. We will also comfortably average more fans at home and away than FGR will next season... which isn’t anything special.

Precisely, bald men arguing over a comb.

 

[Si Robin]

Interesting to read your opinions reference attendances.
FGR could and would have had many more supporters at game but when it became all ticket that deterred some and there was a weekend rail shut down between Stroud & Cheltenham which also prevented many FGR fans from outside the county attending match.

The attendance figures you abandoned about are simply your own opinion. You could be right but we will not know until Gloucester City become a football league team. [And that is very unlikely for the foreseeable future]

Two figures are certain and that is Cheltenham will have better home attendances this season but that FGRs attendances are the best ever and have drastically improved over the past few years.
I suspect Cheltenham will continue to have better attendances at WR until FGR move to new stadium whereupon our figures would improve to be closer to those of Gloucester Rugby than those of Cheltenham.

That is the best comment I have ever seen on a messageboard.

 

[Greenacres]

I saw some figures a while ago about the relative attendances of the three largest football clubs in the county, over a period of maybe ten to fifteen years. The thing that was really odd was that although the different clubs had attendances that rose and fell, dependent on how successful they were at the time, the total of their seasonal averages was consistently around six thousand. This season the averages of those three clubs may exceed that figure, if added together, but it won't be by very much despite the two largest teams playing in the Football League. The stark reality is that we are a county where the greatest interest is in rugby, both for participation and spectating, I don't see a rapid increase in football attendances happening any time soon.

For all his faults at least Dale Vince is a realist, if we build a new ground there is little sense in building anything that holds much more than five thousand, unless someone finds a magic tree that yields footy fans.

 

[Si Robin]

I feel I should justify my post in respose to FGR Stroud after Greenacre's post above.

It wasn't a dig at FGR and oh how small they are they'll never get 10-12,000 fans (roughly Gloucester RFC's average without looking it up), it was talking from experience of following a successful football club in the County. We have had some fantastic seasons since Steve Cotterill became manager in 1997 - this included a win at Wembley before being promoted to the Football League in a time when you had to be the best team in non-league to get up. Getting to the 5th round of the FA Cup in 2002, big Cup games against WBA, Fulham (Premier League at the time), Newcastle, Stoke, West Ham (twice), Spurs and Everton, two other promotion seasons with wins at the Millennium Stadium, doing the double over Leeds United (arguably our biggest achievement in all that time given how well they were playing at the time and the fact we were struggling).

Despite all of that, and despite trying nearly every advertising technique, ticket offer, etc, etc... at no point have we manage to average more than 4,500 in a season. There is literally no evidence to suggest that any football club in this County will get high attendances, unless they make it to the Championship at least - and even then after a season or two at that level the novelty will begin to wear off.

 

[Greenacres]

The above post from Si Robin appears to back up what I was saying, I would guess at the time that Cheltenham were averaging around 4500 the remaining 1500 (balance from the figures I saw) were being shared out between ourselves and Gloucester City...that probably isn't far off the truth as we were both likely getting around 750-800 for home games. Other than rugby we have to compete with Swindon, the Bristol clubs and possibly those from Birmingham, who undoubtedly draw support from the parts of the county that fall within their catchment. I really can't see how any team in this area could ever get 10-12,000 fans, there just aren't enough people who follow football and would want to pay to watch a game. Even a Championship side would struggle, they might get a figure somewhere like that for a home game, but that would only be by offering half the ground to the opposition.

 

[The Jovial Forester]

Vegans and windmill buffs, Stroud's full of them. Seriously, if we can push the home average up to high 2000s and get some semblance of financial sustainability I'd be delighted.

 

[FGR Stroud]

Vegans and windmill buffs, Stroud's full of them. Seriously, if we can push the home average up to high 2000s and get some semblance of financial sustainability I'd be delighted.

Where FGR did themselves a great dis-service this season is by putting all the away fans on the West (Wet) Stand rather than let them use the traditional North Stand.
Standing under the open sky in one of the worst winters in recent years has turned many away fans from a return visit. Shame because every fan through the turnstile adds money for strengthening our team.

 

[The Jovial Forester]

Where FGR did themselves a great dis-service this season is by putting all the away fans on the West (Wet) Stand rather than let them use the traditional North Stand.
Standing under the open sky in one of the worst winters in recent years has turned many away fans from a return visit. Shame because every fan through the turnstile adds money for strengthening our team.

I was meaning home fans regardless of away turnout but agree it would be good to welcome more of them too. Supposed to be work over the summer I think.