They say a year can be a long time in football.
So if that be true, what Forest Green Rovers have done in the past five months has been nothing short of extraordinary.
Let’s take it back to October 14th 2017 and not even a gleaming sun over the Nailsworth hillside could shadow what had just occurred in-front of 2,864 spectators at a shocked New Lawn.
The first ever Severnside derby in the Football League had turned into a massacre by a visiting team that looked a dead certainty for relegation in the previous season. A derby more from location than history, but nothing could hide a simple 4-0 victory for Newport County AFC. Less professional football, more a walk in the park for the visitors.
Forest Green were Dismantled. Destroyed. Doomed.
Such was the manner of an emphatic victory, that Newport manager Mike Flynn had the audacity to claim his side “weren’t ruthless enough” and that he would hold those 11 players responsible if they missed out on the League 2 play-offs via goal difference.
Not even Rovers manager Mark Cooper could hide his embarrassment as to what he had just witnessed.
He lambasted his team by saying: “We worked on Newport’s dominance at set pieces and then two of our most senior players allow free headers for their first goal. I’ll take that on the chin but it’s disappointing after the last three games where we have played so well. It’s another defeat and one we fully deserved to lose today.”
There looked no way that Rovers could possibly avoid an instant return to the perilous non-league. If you had a spare 50p, there seemed a mini-fortune heading your way if you bet on the Green Devils to be relegated at what the odds were then 6/1.
What chairman Dale Vince had said about Rovers “only staying in League 2 for just one season” seemed absolutely nailed-on; but probably not in the way he meant that quote after the play-off final victory over Tranmere Rovers just four months previously.
But new life has seemingly been breathed into the eco-friendly club, with Cooper nominated for the League 2 manager of the month award after the side ended a difficult February unbeaten. The real test, however, lied in their first game of March when they played the return fixture against Newport at Rodney Parade.
143 days separated the two matches. 143 days to revolutionise the club. 143 days to show League 2 that they weren’t pushovers anymore.
A successful January transfer window also aided Rovers on the night… with only three players being named within the side in South Wales as opposed to the dismantled side five months ago.
And that statistic showed as The Green Devils looked like a phoenix rising from the ashes, changing the score line from 0-4 to 3-3.
It was a similar crowd to watch the contest, this time on a Tuesday night, with 283 hardy Rovers fans encompassing 2,862 spectators at Rodney Parade.
None of them could feel hard changed by the dramatic narrative they had just witnessed; and none of them could have argued if the away side had come out the victors for just the third time on the road this season.
You might as well have chucked that 50p down the drain than wait to see if your bet could still come in.
Mike Flynn’s reaction this time? More humbled than hubristic. He claimed Rovers had now created the “best strike-force” in the entirety of the division by adding Reuben Reid, who has 11 goals already this season, to their talismanic striker Christian Doidge, who has found his name on the score sheet 21 times this campaign.
Flynn commented: “We knew that they [Forest Green] would have some good possession at times because they are a very good team. They strengthened well in January and have improved a lot. They have some exciting midfielders, arguably the best strike force in the league with Reuben Reid and Christian Doidge. And we knew they had that about them.”
Such is the unbelievable turnaround from the side over the recent months; that many people are tipping Rovers to challenge for the League 2 title next season. Relegation now seems impossible compared to an absolute certainty.
But such is the upturn in form of late, that Cooper was actually disappointed to walk away from South Wales with just a point.
He commented: “We would have taken a point before the game. It’s another point on the board, it’s a tough place to come, you have to be very aggressive and you have to deal with a buoyant crowd behind them. We’ve come away with a point but we need to defend better.”
The gap to the team across the Severn Bridge has almost been cut in half since the two meetings, with the difference in position now just being five places instead of 17.
And with the likelihood of free-spending Luton Town getting promotion at the end of the current campaign, it appears that Forest Green may just have the biggest budget in the league next season, although that could soon change depending on what teams get relegated from League 1.
That 50p could come in handy once again, but this time in regards to Forest Green’s demeanours at the top of the table rather than at the bottom.
The sun continues to shine over the Nailsworth hillside, but this time the team is shining too.
