FAN’S VIEW 22/23 – No.50 – FOREST GREEN AWAY

After the emphatic win over a poor Cheltenham side on Tuesday the prospects for the first time in an age pointed towards L1 football for us in 23/24.

Given the vastly superior goal difference we have over our relegation rivals a win at the New Lawn would make it impossible for Morecambe and Accrington to catch us and if just one of MK Dons and Cambridge failed to win they’d also not be able to overtake us. Therefore we’d be safe with one game to go. Most oxford fans travelling to Gloucestershire will have done these calculations.

FOREST GREEN ROVERS 0 OXFORD UNITED 3

This just didn’t feel like a proper football away day to me. There were many reasons for this.

I like visiting a variety of locations following the Yellows but Nailsworth, come on, it’s a sleepy little town in the Stroud Valley with a population of about 6k in the parish. It’s hardly a hotbed of sporting passion. The ground just isn’t in the right place for a football club. At the top of that bloody hill which at times seems to be at a 45 degree angle and where vehicle access is tricky. I really admire what they’ve achieved under Dale Vince’s ownership but there’s something more Conference South about the place than League One.

Perhaps it was the surprisingly warm day which took me by surprise, giving an end of season feel to the game even though there was such a lot riding on it for us.

Then there was the ease with which we ran out winners. A stroll in the park. I never once felt any nerves.

We began the game keeping the ball well. With ten minutes gone there were one or two voices near me that were agitating for us to get the ball forward. I despair. Some people just don’t get tactics and how to win football matches and this was 100% all about winning a football match. At the time there were still eighty minutes to go. That’s 4,800 seconds and “it only takes a second to score a goal”.

All it required was patience. Keep the ball, don’t play overly ambitious passes forward where possession is likely to be lost, wait for a decent opening then go for it whilst also pressurising the opposition into mistakes. It wasn’t as if we were playing Ipswich or facing the most technically gifted players in the division.

We didn’t have to wait long. Eleven minutes in, Stuart Findley played a square pass to Elliott Moore who played the ball directly forward about 25 yards to Marcus McGuane who had found a bit of space in the centre of the park. Now was the time to click into attacking mode. He turned and fed Kyle Joseph who still had a lot to do to get an effort on goal let alone score. Our man on loan from Swansea outmuscled his marker, took the ball into the box and hammered it home past keeper Ross Doohan at his near post.

We were in complete control and of course a second goal would have been nice but there was even less reason to try and force it when nothing obvious was on as we had the lead. It wasn’t as if we were struggling in the way we were playing. We were keeping possession with ease – but again there were mutterings to get it forward.

That said, as the half wore on I did detect a kind of complacency, a kind of taking our foot off the gas a bit, not that we’d needed to put our toes anywhere near to the floor in the first place. My almost total confidence in us winning was, I have to be honest, dented slightly at this stage.

I needn’t have worried though. I can only recall one fleeting moment when I thought we might be slightly under manned at the back and we got to half time with that single goal lead.

A minute after the players returned for part two that single had become a double. The scorer was substitute Tyler Goodrham. He had replaced Marcus Browne who had not made much of an impression on the game. He’s injured again apparently. It was marking the Forest Green defenders and not letting them get the ball out from the back which brought about this goal. Joseph on Doohan, Goodrham on Udoka Godwin-Malife and Billy Bodin on Harvey Bunker. When Godwin-Malife got the ball back he played it straight onto Josh Murphy who had also joined in the pressing game. Goodrham, who was buzzing about in this little episode, picked the ball up and won the challenge with Dylan McGeouch because he wanted it and the FGR man didn’t appear to care a lot. From the very edge of the box Goodrham bent his shot into the top corner. It was one of those where you think no keeper is stopping that. Doohan certainly wasn’t.

The rest was pretty much plain sailing. There was to be no nail biting in Nailsworth. If they’d pulled one back that might have been different but on the one occasion when it looked like we might be in trouble after a long clearance had been nodded on to Tyrese Omotoye, out came Simon Eastwood to block the effort on goal and gather at the second attempt.

A third was added with a little over 20 minutes remaining. We’d played the ball about midway in the Rovers half with no green shirt doing anything to make life difficult for us. When Brannagan played the ball forward to Bodin such was the home side’s lack of marking that our number seven had no need to shield the ball with back to goal but was able to take it on the turn. Then just like that he’d done some bending of the ball too. Doohan didn’t move an inch. It came out of nowhere. It was so good I initially thought it must have taken some kind of weird deflection but it didn’t.

A clean sheet and three goals of quality from open play was something unimaginable a few games ago and this after a 4-0 triumph the previous match.

With Cambridge having taken the lead at Accrington and being two up for most of the game until the home side scored a penalty late on, alongside MK Dons scoring again in the 69^th minute to go 4-1 up at home to play-off certs Barnsley, it seemed for sure we would have to wait until next Sunday to get over the line.

Then on 73 minutes “Barnsley have got one back” said those whose phones were getting a signal. Mine wasn’t. A couple of minutes later a group of young fans to my left started jumping up and down. “Barnsley must have got another” someone said. “No, they must just be pissing out as one does at times like this”. Sure enough though it was 4-3. Franchise must be crapping themselves. Can’t happen though can it? It did. The Tykes equalised in the 86^th minute.

With seven minutes of added time at Stadium MK we waited in the sunshine as did the players, management and other staff. Full time confirmed. The players applauded the fans who sang “we are staying up” and returned the applause.

Waiting for confirmation

I joined in the singing very briefly and did clap but not at full velocity. Yes they’d done very well on the day with a thoroughly confident and professional performance but these were the same players that got us into the mess in the first place although it has to be said they had more than a helping hand from Karl Robinson along the way. I shouted, fully knowing I’d not be heard “Do bloody better next season, lads.”

Celebrating staying up by reaching 47 points when we allegedly had a play-off budget tells what a poor season this has been.

Where do we go from here? What can we expect in 2023/24? What budget will Liam Manning be given? I’m quite confident we’ll do better next time around but have not set my sights on much other than top 10 given where we are now.

I looked at the players in front of me. The defence looks to be about good enough. Perhaps lacking a bit of cover but they’ve performed very well this season considering the state we’ve been in elsewhere on the pitch. And there’s Stephan Negru.

In central midfield under Manning the Brannagan/McGuane partnership seems to be working.

In Tyler Goodrham we have a precocious talent and Kyle Joseph would be a hugely positive signing were we able to pull that off.

There is much work though to be done getting the right personnel to fill the other wide(ish) and striking roles. What we’ve had this season has been too flaky, inconsistent and injury prone. Manning will have been working out who it is worth keeping and who he would like to bring in, finances permitting. There are of course players under contract who will not figure. Sam Baldock has got another year (I know I should let this go but I’m getting angry typing this – who the, why the, what the?  – heads should roll). But we are where we are.

After our survival had been confirmed the FGR players returned to the pitch to give the traditional thanks at the last home game of the season to their supporters. There were a few of them left in the ground at the time. Futile or what? There was probably as many travelling Oxford fans in the home section at the time.

Those home supporters must know that as a tiny club they were always likely to struggle in tier 3 but probably didn’t expect it to be so brutal. We think we’ve had a terrible run prior to the Cheltenham game, well that’s nothing compared with this lot. From the last 72 points they’ve contested they’ve won seven. We are though a much bigger club than them. And what of their future? With larger outfits in L2 than them it’s hard to see them returning to this level any time soon but football can be an unpredictable game. Under Dale Vince they’ll continue down the greenest of green eco-friendly road. They have a new stadium planned even though they have not been in this one very long. They’re looking at an all wooden 5,000 capacity stadium about 8 miles away right next to junction 13 of the M5. Much more accessible maybe but what a joyless away trip that would be.

I am all for saving the planet, seriously, but there’s other things that need to be considered too. On Saturday there was a Brew Dog bar outside the ground to satisfy the thirst of those who couldn’t face the hill or be bothered to hop on the frequent bus service and the stewards did well in taking some kids who had no chance of getting a glimpse of the pitch and putting them and their parents in with the home fans. It’s that sort of place. But inside there’s no noticeable signs showing where the toilets were. The queue for the totally inadequate refreshment facilities was blocking those trying to get to the toilets, as were a row of dustbins. It was easy to join the queue for a vegan pie thinking it was for the pisser. The narrowness of the walkway behind the terraces didn’t make for easy entrance and egress.

Egypt Mill

No matter, we’ll possibly never return to this venue and if we do play FGR again it may not be in Nailsworth which offered pleasant surroundings for pre-match drinks. What a venue the Egypt Mill is. The oldest parts of the building go back to the 14^th century. And the Village Inn has an on-site brewery. It surprised me that there were so few people in there.

Nailsworth though is history. I’m already looking forward to Blackpool, Wigan and Leyton Orient. Not Stevenage so much if I’m being honest.