ElGlosico: Cheltenham Town vs Forest Green Rovers

With the season both Cheltenham Town and Forest Green Rovers are having, this game hardly had the ingredients to be up there with some of the greatest derbies in history. And it played out exactly how you'd expect it to, with a 1-0 victory for the visiting side Forest Green Rovers, courtesy of a Christian Doidge goal in the 43rd minute.

I went along to the LCI Rail Stadium with the hopes that with the prospect of a bitter rivalry playing out in front of me, there might be glimpses of a side of Cheltenham Town that I hadn't seen in previous games. But what I saw was the same heartless, flat and sub-par performance I've come to expect from this team.

As much as it is a hard pill to swallow for many Cheltenham fans, Forest Green looked the more positive team going forward, plenty of sharp moves conducted by Reuben Reid who looked too good a player to be amongst a team struggling for safety in League Two. It is a wonder why Exeter didn't renew his contract, he is definitely good enough to be amongst the teams battling for the playoffs. The only real positive spark for the Robins being Ilias Chatzitheodoridis.

The Milan derby, the North London derby and the El Classico itself are all hotly contested battles with the most loyal and hostile fan bases. But as ferocious and feisty derbies go, this wasn't one of them. The greatest sign of atmosphere from either side was unfortunately shown roughly 5 hours before kick-off when police were called to a mass brawl between 30-40 males in the town centre. It is believed this was a clash between the two fanbases.

As far as crowd trouble goes at the stadium, it was a fairly tame affair with only the one flair coming from the away end, which you could almost call civilised.

If this was a game in the leagues higher up where ticket prices are considerably more expensive, there would be calls from fans for refunds. But for my £5 match day ticket I wouldn't complain. In a game where I caught a glimpse of passion from the fans with so much at stake, it was refreshing to see some heart from the support. But with all due respect in my experience of Cheltenham Town atmosphere its never been what i'd call electric.

And as far as going forward for Cheltenham and looking forward to next season, there is a need for a shake up amongst the squad and a new style of play. Whether that's through a new manager, we shall see.