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Forest Green Rovers - Club History
Taken from “Something to Shout About, The History of Forest Green Rovers AFC” Tempus publishing Ltd ISBN 0-7524-4072-1, RRP £15-99.
Club History - Overview Continued...
In 1982, Rovers achieved fame at Wembley winning the FA Vase 3-1 and at the same time winning the Hellenic League and moving into the Southern League Midland Division.
High hopes over the forthcoming years dwindled into thoughts of what might have been and Rovers struggled throughout the 80s near the foot of the table. In a bid to turn the Club’s fortunes around Rovers were renamed Stroud FC but this proved near disastrous with many life long fans and committee members turning their back on “Stroud FC”.
The arrival of Trevor Horsley in 1992 saw the Club name changed back to Forest Green Rovers and the rest, as they say, is history.
Frank Gregan arrived as manager in 1994 taking the club to the Southern League Southern Division title in 1997 and into the Southern League Premier Division for the first time. The following year a showdown with Merthyr Tydfil in front of a record crowd of 2962 at the newly upgraded “Lawn” saw the Little Club on The Hill through to the Conference.
Relegation was avoided in the last five minutes of the last game the following year, but in 2001, under Nigel Spink, Rovers returned to the Trophy Final at Villa Park this time losing to Canvey Island again by the only goal of the game.
A best ever finish of 9th in the Conference was achieved in 2003 under Colin Addison but this was then followed by further relegation battles up until 2006 when relegation was again avoided on the last day of the season.
Whilst the team were struggling on the pitch, ambitious plans were put forward in 2002 to move the Club to a new Football League standard ground 400 meters away, still in the Hamlet of Forest Green. Planning permission was granted in 2005 and the new stadium was built over the next year, funded by the sale of the old ground for housing development. Carrying on a tradition set by supporters back in the 1950s the new stadium was painted from head to toe by supporters all on a voluntary basis.
Rovers were everybody’s favourites for relegation in 1999 but instead they went back to Wembley in the FA Trophy becoming the first club to appear in both the Trophy and Vase Finals, a sign of how far the club had come. The Trophy final was lost to Kingstonian 1-0, but 12th place in the league confounded the pundits.
Gary Smart celebrates after scoring a memorable goal against St. Albans in the FA Trophy semi-final.
The New Lawn was officially opened in September 2006 which also coincided with the appointment of Jim Harvey as manger on a long term contract. Jim guided Forest Green away from the bottom of the league to a respectable mid table finish in 2007.
The New Lawn after was officially opened in 2006.
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