Match: v Forest Green Rovers - Blue Square Premier

Date: Saturday, September 29th 2007

Result: Forest Green 3 Cambridge United 1

The Journey

Departure Time: 9am

Arrival at Ground: A reasonable enough trip took us past the grey tenements of the outskirts of Birmingham to the leafy lanes of rural Gloucestershire. After scaling the precipitous hill atop which the club sits in Nailsworth, we paid the £3 to park at the ground at about 12.30pm.

Obviously the Forest Green Rovers wanted to collect as many £3s as possible per square yard of green mesh-covered grass, so there was an extremely officious parking attendant on duty, barking instructions to park as close as possible to the next car in the car park. I think we were a bit naughty and left enough room to open car doors, but fortunately he was distracted by the approach of the next driver to shout at.

There was time for a quick bite of lunch - and for Sergeant Major Car Park to shout at us to make sure we used the bins for our sandwich bags (which was a little odd given that our lunch was in Tupperware boxes!) - and to have a quick look at the minor non-league ground that was next to the car park. This, we noted, had a barrier round the pitch and awning-covered dugouts that made them look like a Bedouin encampment.

At The Ground

The Ground: A new ground, now in its second season, the exterior walls of the stadium may be breezeblock, but they are the same sandstone colour of many of the houses in the area. While many of travelling United fans made for the 'Green Man' pub that formed part of this outer front wall, we headed a couple of doors along for the impressively plush reception area where we received a warm welcome. Although we were a little too early for the press area to be open, an extremely helpful club official went out of his way to lead us through an array of sponsors boxes to where we needed to be to set up in good time to broadcast.

Once inside, there was one obvious change to the stadium from our last visit where, instead of the skeleton of a stand in progress behind one goal, the fitting out process had moved on apace with the addition of eight rows of green seats to make this end of the ground habitable. This stand was given over to United fans.

This was the first time this end of the ground had been open and there did seem to have been an unseemly haste to use it. The seats had been brought from the old ground a little further down the hill and they appeared to have been in storage for some considerable time given the layer of grime that had accumulated on them. Presumably they hoped the backsides of travelling fans would polish them up a bit. Sheets of chipboard covered the fronts of rooms waiting to be activated at the back while, to either side, large metal fences screened off areas of aggregate that gave the impression that a road building project had been delayed by an extended tea break. These fences proved ideal for hanging flags.

Perhaps the most notable aspect of this end of the ground was the lack of barrier at the front of the stand; apparently Conference regulations say that you don't need one if the capacity of the stand is fewer than 500, although the lack of anything other than a steward or two between the away fans and the pitch does seem to be a recipe for trouble - and a problem that seems unlikely to be solved by stern announcements over the p.a. telling the visitors that their behaviour would get their club in trouble.

This 'hoping for the best' approach was undermined by a member of the home staff appearing to 'large it' in front of the away fans after Forest Green scored and then apparently squirting water over the United flags as he headed for the changing rooms at half time, which led to a bit of a kerfuffle.

The main stand, to the right of the away end, seemed to be a stretched version of how the new stand might look when it's finished. With clean black and white seats, rather than grubby green ones, and a full complement of executive area windows at the back, a couple of blocks of this stand had been taped off as an overspill area for U's fans - which seemed a little excessive... as was, presumably, the number of away fans they had been told to expect.

Continuing round, there was a low, sandstone-effect tea bar in between the main stand and the low, covered terrace behind the other goal over which there were glorious views of the rolling Gloucestershire countryside.

The remaining side of the ground consisted of a low, uncovered terrace backed by a corrugated rear fence with the apex of Nailsworth's precipitous hill behind. Much of this stand was taped off so only the end near the covered terrace was available to supporters.

Despite currently sharing the ground with Gloucester City, the pitch looked immaculate. I understand that there had been drainage problems - ironically on the very spot where Bishop John of Tewksbury had stood to Bless the opening of the ground when we visited last season. I also understand that further investigations had revealed that these problems had been caused the contractors rather than by the good Bishop!

United Fans: Good numbers, good support and reasonably well behaved - despite provocation from the aforementioned member of the home staff and a tannoy man who had the calming effect of a phial of nitro-glycerine.

View from Away End: Although the first row of seats in the away end was actually below pitch level, the view was very good.

Police/Stewards: A few police stood in the corner watching the game before spending half time giving the incendiary member of the home staff a good talking to. They had to eject one United fan for getting a little too exuberant after the consolation goal at the end.

Programme: £2.50 for 52 advert-filled pages.

Food/Drink: £1.50 for a small cone of chips, £1 for a two-thirds full thimble-sized cup of tea and a pie, about which there were complaints about it not being hot enough in the middle.

State of Toilets: The incompleteness of the stand was matched by the small facilities where the hand dryers had yet to be installed. Those under the main stand were much better with lights that, somewhat alarmingly, activated when you went in, hand dryers that actually worked and a general air of being regularly cleaned.

Afterwards

The Journey Home: A real autumnal feel to the journey home as we passed the last vestiges of surfers and caravaners waving goodbye to the non-summer under a harvest moon.

Mileage: 352.2 miles

Total Distance for Season: 2,101.3 miles

Mark Johnson, with additional reporting by David Gray, Paul Johnson, Ryan Johnson and Gordon McMillan

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