After his side’s 1-0 victory over Wycombe on Saturday, Cheltenham Town manager Wade Elliot expressed that he knows how much the Gloucestershire derby against Forest Green means to the fans, as the two teams prepare to face each other in the Papa John’s Trophy on Tuesday night.
When both teams walk out onto the pitch at the New Lawn Stadium it will be a lot more than just any other cup game as it will have a lot more at stake than just a place in the next round.
The fixture will be the first time that the two teams face each other as League One teams, the last encounter between the sides was in January 2021, where the score ended in a 0-0 draw. That season saw Cheltenham win the League Two title, a year before their Gloucestershire rivals repeated the feat.
Embed from Getty Images“I am not deaf so I do hear the fans singing about Forest Green and I know how much of a big game it is,” Elliot said to Gloucestershire Live.
Forest Green Rovers manager Ian Burchnall said that the game against their fiercest rivals Cheltenham Town would be a “fun derby match”.
This won’t be the first time that these two sides have met in the EFL Trophy, with the last encounter coming in the 2018/19 season where Rovers prevailed 4-0 victors.
Cheltenham Town currently sit 18th in League One, six places above rivals Forest Green who are rock bottom of the third division and this is the first of three meetings between the two this season with their first league meeting coming on 10th December.
Cheltenham Town have never won away at Forest Green, in fact, they have only beaten Rovers once in their entire history. Forest Green however have a really impressive record in previous encounters, having won 5 and drawn 6 in all 13 meetings.
