Forest Green Rovers hoping for FA Cup sell-out against Derby

Forest Green Rovers are hoping for a first ever sell-out at the New Lawn after drawing Championship side Derby County in the FA Cup third round.

Jim Harvey’s team produced one of the shocks of the second round when they beat Rochdale 2-0 thanks to goals from Jonathan Smith and Josh Low.

Hopes were high that Rovers would be paired with ball number 23 – Manchester United – in the draw.

But former Premier League side Derby should still help shatter the previous best attendance at the ground – 3,021 against Oxford last Christmas.

The capacity is 5,147, they regularly average around 1,000 and on Saturday they drew a relatively disappointing 1,715.

Assistant manager Jerry Gill said: “It is an excellent draw. Personally and selfishly I would have liked my old club Birmingham and there were plenty of us wanting Man United or Chelsea.

“We will approach it like we did against Rochdale and I am sure we will give a good account of ourselves.

“It will be at home and we will be hoping for a full house. The crowds haven’t been great but  that is the way it is in these tough times.

“Hopefully we will attract a lot of fans from other clubs who have already been knocked out of the cup.

“We like to play attractive football – the way Jim has set the team up over his time here – but we also mixed it up well against Rochdale.”

Forest Green banked £30,000 in prize money for Saturday’s win and could use that and the gate receipts from the Derby game on Saturday, January 3, to sign a new striker when the transfer window re-opens.

But before then they will try to climb away from the bottom end of the Conference table. “The cups have helped us and hopefully we can transfer that form to the league starting with Saturday’s match with Burton Albion,” added Gill.

Forest Green are back in action at the New Lawn on Tuesday night in the fourth round of the Setanta Shield against Torquay United.