Searching for the Soul of Forest Green Part Two

‘We think place is about space but in fact, it is really about time.’
(Rebecca Solnit)

When I first went in search of the soul of FGR,
I wandered through fields and lanes and hills and hedgerows,
Trying to find FGR’s elusive genius loci,
A topographical version of the soul,
Interwoven with local history,
Only to reach the conclusion that this soul
Might just be found in the imagination,
An invented fey ley line,
Emanating from the Jovial Forester,
Stretching up to The New Lawn Another Way
Down through the old hamlet of Forest Green,
And along the valley to the River Frome,
And thence to the River Severn,
A gateway to a world far beyond the Five Valleys:
In short, a Janus-like conjoining
Of both introspection and extrojection.

But a reading of Tim Barnard’s FGR history:
Something to Shout About
Gave me something to think about,
And grounded me further in time as well as space,

‘We think place is about space but in fact, it is really about time.’
(Rebecca Solnit)

When I first went in search of the soul of FGR,
I wandered through fields and lanes and hills and hedgerows,
Trying to find FGR’s elusive genius loci,
A topographical version of the soul,
Interwoven with local history,
Only to reach the conclusion that this soul
Might just be found in the imagination,
An invented fey ley line,
Emanating from the Jovial Forester,
Stretching up to The New Lawn Another Way
Down through the old hamlet of Forest Green,
And along the valley to the River Frome,
And thence to the River Severn,
A gateway to a world far beyond the Five Valleys:
In short, a Janus-like conjoining
Of both introspection and extrojection.

But a reading of Tim Barnard’s FGR history:
Something to Shout About
Gave me something to think about,
And grounded me further in time as well as space,

Viz:

  1. Late 19th century Stroud Journal football reports used an eccentric first person approach from the point of view of the football: for example, ‘The goal Forest Green got was … a very lucky one. I was quite by myself, and the Stroud goalkeeper rushed at me … Signed: The Ball.’
  2. Woodchester Priory had a team in 1895, and players readily switched clubs: Woodchester, Nailsworth, Forest Green, Stroud, and so on.
  3. On the other hand, playing for Forest Green passed through the generations; the same names appear – Marmont, for example; or, the Browns: ‘Don’t you dare sign for Shortwood – Browns play for Forest Green …’ There was the ‘exaggeration of small differences’ syndrome: Newmarket, Shortwood, Forest Green.
  4. A village like Amberley could put out a team before the Great War; so could the M&SWJ Railway – it makes you think about how that war ripped the hearts out of so many villages. (No one smiles in early 1920s team pictures, as a rule, do they?)
  5. What’s in a name? Forest Green and Nailsworth teams seemed to almost serially swop names before the Great War: ‘Nailsworth and Forest Green United’ standing out as an archetypal period piece of footballing nomenclature.
  6. Extracts from Trenchcoats for Goalposts: ‘Fancy a pint, Ernie?’ ‘Don’t mind if I do, Ernie.’ Lights shine on sign – Both: ‘The Jovial Foresters!’ ‘Home of Forest Green. Changed in here every Saturday. Its very quiet tonight though isn’t it.’ ‘Well … that’s old Kitchener for you.’ Both: ‘Your Country Needs You!’

    Who’s for the Game? by Jessie Pope:

    Who’s for the game, the biggest that’s played,
    The red crashing game of a fight?
    Who’ll grip and tackle the job unafraid?
    And who thinks he’d rather sit tight?
    Who’ll toe the line for the signal to ‘Go!’?
    Who’ll give his country a hand?
    Who wants a turn to himself in the show?
    And who wants a seat in the stand?
    Who knows it won’t be a picnic – not much-
    Yet eagerly shoulders a gun?
    Who would much rather come back with a crutch
    Than lie low and be out of the fun?
    Come along, lads –
    But you’ll come on all right –
    For there’s only one course to pursue,
    Your country is up to her neck in a fight,
    And she’s looking and calling for you.

  7. Lilian Northwood lived close to the pub and looked back to the post-war years in Forest Green Lily. She spoke of the team’s successes; marching behind the Nailsworth silver band; ‘The Rovers’ black and white flag fluttered proudly in the breeze’; music and dancing in the street outside the pub:

    We are the Forest Green Rovers
    Our forwards are hot on the ball
    Our half-backs and full-backs want beating
    And the goalie they can’t beat at all
    Chorus
    Where will they be when the Rovers take the running?
    Where will they be when they’ve done their level best?
    Where will they be with all their strength and cunning?

    Ten to one on the Rovers and nothing on the rest.’

  8. FG yo-yoed up and down Chestnut Hill from The Lawn to Nailsworth and back in the 1920s. Pitches included Tanner’s Piece (now Park Road); Enoch’s Field (now King George V’s Playing Fields); Hayes Road (near the Jovial Forester), owned by FG Congregational Church – they had a team too, and The Lawn. You could spectate from a bedroom window, or crawl through hedgerows, or retrieve footballs from the same hedgerows, or help cut the grass and keep the ground tidy.
  9. The British Empire transmitted its racial tropes: one ‘mascot’ would dispense with the customary black and white stripes, top hat and tails, and would, instead, ‘black up’, climbing Spring Hill, frightening children, armed with a shield and a spear.
  10. Society transmitted its gender tropes: wives, sisters, aunts, mothers had to wash and iron all the football kit, on top of everything else.
  11. 1936 was a year! Abdication Crisis … Hitler’s gamble on marching into the Rhineland … FG decide to buy the football ground at auction, without the necessary.
  12. Local derbies attracted crowds of some seven hundred, otherwise ‘just a smattering’ (Peter Vick). People biked and walked over the commons for the derbies, Brimscombe being the key game for both FG and Brimscombe.
  13. The sun shone, lawns were being mown, pillboxes at Framilode built facing the wrong way: ‘What a day for a war.’ During WW2, Lord Lee (resident at Avening) paid for a cup for a local league; it was won by Nailsworth Rangers and placed on a shelf at the Britannia; from where it mysteriously disappeared. Other matches took place against the RAF at Aston Down; the Home Guard kept watch; my old friend Peter Tickner was evacuated to Eastington from where he witnessed the night sky turn red when Coventry was blitzed; the football pitch at The Lawn was turned over to pasture. Players such as Ronnie Clift (killed in Crete) lost their lives.
  14. After the war, Peter Vick would regularly cut his nose when heading the ball – his glasses were of steel, made to sit inside a gas mask. Other consequences of the war included Polish refugees and service people living in camps. (Remember the Polish contribution to the Battle of Britain and ‘The few’) They had a team in the Stroud League in the early 50s.
  15. 1948-49 saw programmes sold for the first time – the night before a match at the George Hotel in Nailsworth and the Jolly Forester.
  16. 1951: a colour change almost occurred, from black and white stripes (established 1919) to green and white stripes.

    ‘and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.’ TS Eliot

  17. And the swinging sixties? 1965: Ready Steady Go!(?) No – Points West. FG on TV for the first time with the opening of the new grandstand.
  18. Welcome to the 1970s: Punk comes and goes … The Falklands War … the New Romantics … and … … Mrs. Thatcher … and … ‘WEMBERLY, WEMBERLY, WE ARE THE FAMOUS FOREST GREEN ROVERS AND WE’RE PLAYING AT WEMBERLY’ 1982 FA Vase Final FGR 3 Rainworth Miners Welfare 0. The poignancy of that name! Rainworth Miners Welfare – little did we know exactly what was just around the corner … Miners’ Support Group(s) in Stroud …
  19. And after that for FGR? Gates below 200; a team picture from 1986-87, back row, 2nd left: ‘unknown’.
  20. And a name change … 1989, FGR rebranded as Stroud FC. A shock to all, one year before the FGR centenary. A couple of years later, and, money was owed to the Inland Revenue, the brewery was ‘after them’, the coffers could barely run to turning on the floodlights, debts kept mounting, a fanzine was launched and closed after two issues and the threat of legal action … But! There was a return to the 1970s black and white kit! And in May 1992, the name reverted back to Forest Green Rovers!
  21. Frank Gregan was an old school manager – his training routines included sending the players up and down Chestnut Hill to report back on the price of an onion bhaji; there’s something of the Empire about this … did the restaurant continually alter the price under Mr. Gregan’s orders? Was inflation that rampant? Or was it an easy gig for the players … ‘Same price as last week, boss.’ Anyway, now that Girish is selling his vegan curries up at the New Lawn, life gets easier on the training ground.
  22. A new stand in 1996; gates more than doubled in a couple of years to 500 … and a history of local, regional and the quaintly named ‘Hellenic League’, together with back-to-back promotions brought the demands of modernity to the table: promotion to the Conference would mean further ground improvements: more seats; more covered terracing.
  23. The end of the millennium meant FGR’s second visit to Wembley, with a whole series of multiple miraculous escapes from relegation from the Conference in the new one. Last Minute Goals! Results improbably going FGR’s way on the final day of the season! Goal Difference! Other club’s malfeasance or inadequate stadiums! Glued to teletext and ceefax! You couldn’t make it up, folks! Safe for another season!
  24. Meanwhile, in a parallel universe … ideas for a new stadium at Stonehouse; or along the Avening Road; instead … plans for a new stand at The Lawn to satisfy Conference rules and regulations. And in another parallel universe … coaches from Worksop for a fixture against FGR went to Forest Green, near Gatwick. You couldn’t make it up, folks!
  25. And in yet another parallel universe … a repeated line: ‘The FA Vase and FA Trophy double would have to wait for another year.’
  26. And back at the ranch … Stroud College objected to any expansion of the ground … that would mean that FGR could face relegation as the ground would not satisfy Conference regulations … so attention turned to the aptly named Highwood playing fields … work started 2005 … But debts continued to mount, indeed, spiral. And even though initial discussions with Dale Vince in 2009 about sponsorship were fruitless … like a windblown Topsy, the discussions grew … as did the involvement of Mr Vince, as chairman; as did the sponsorship of Ecotricity, as did the environmental awareness re cuisine and transport … and the team’s colours changed once more …
  27. And now here we at The New Lawn, in the Football League, and with the possibility of a change of home to Eastington: there’s something typically FGR paradoxical about going west to Eastington; ‘Another Way’.

Conclusion

‘and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.’ TS Eliot

‘Pub team with money, you’re just a pub team with money.’

When the Eastleigh fans sang that, did they know that they were referencing the Jolly Forester?
Or was there an ambient, subliminal force at work?
A fey ley line working its magic, channeled from the old Jolly Forester?
The spiritual home of FGR.
The soul of Forest Green.

FGR have had an equivocal relationship with Forest Green and the local landscape; Newmarket, Shortwood, Nailsworth, Stroud, the Five Valleys; a part of it and apart from it. The topography has always meant a pressure on space and the capacity of stadiums. Climbing the football ladder has constantly meant a questioning of the utility of the stadiums at The Lawn and The New Lawn. Heraclitus: ‘The only constant is flux.’

Ditto, team strip and colours.

Ditto, getting to and from the match. ‘O tempora, o mores!

The tales of LS Lowry-like women and men, girls and boys, matchstick dogs and cats … walking or cycling over the commons … and now … all those cars jamming the local roads … despite a brilliant local bus service.
It would be great if FGR could promote a healthy life style not just through diet and energy, but also through promoting walking, cycling and using public transport to the match.

I think it was Perry Anderson who said that nations were ‘imagined communities’. The same could be said of FGR – but having read, thought, wandered and wondered, my ultimate conclusion is that the heart and soul of the ‘imagined community of FGR lies by the Jolly Forester. (Singular? Plural?)
I shall walk up there sometime and re-imagine the band playing in the street outside, the dancing in the lanes, the singing, the celebratory recompense that FGR could give after the devastation of the Great War.
(See point 7 above.)

‘and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.’ TS Eliot

‘Pub team with money, you’re just a pub team with money.’

If and when the move to Eastington takes place, I hope there could be some heritage boards constructed at the new ground. And if the owners agreed, a plaque at the house which was the pub and changing room. There is a post box in the wall there: wouldn’t it be marvelous if when the ground switch happens, fans posted a memory of The Lawn/New Lawn to the new ground. There could be a changing display.

‘and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.’ TS Eliot

Post script
Stuart, I’ve been reading an e-copy of this. Fascinated by FGR’s early amalgamation with Nailsworth Thursday FC

FOOTBALL by Jean Philippe Toussaint
‘Toussaint is carving out one of the most fascinating literary oeuvres of our times.’ – Nicholas Lezard, Guardian
‘This is a book that no one will like, not intellectuals, who aren’t interested in football, or football-lovers, who will find it too intellectual. But I had to write it, I didn’t want to break the fine thread that still connects me to the world.’ (Jean Philippe Toussaint

Emerveillement
‘Le football, comme la peinture, selon Leonard de Vinci, est cosa mentale, c’est dans l’imaginaire qu’iI se mesure et s’apprecie. La nature de l’emerveillement que le football suscite provient des fantasmes de triomphe et de toute-puissance qu’il genere dans notre esprit.’

Wonder

‘Football, like painting according to Leonardo da Vinci, is a cosa mentale; it is in the imagination that it is measured and appreciated. The nature of the wonder that football provokes derives from the fantasies of triumph and omnipotence that it generates in our minds.’
(With thanks to Helen Aubrey for the translation)