Cirencester Town 3
By Danny Hall
FOREST Green ended their scheduled pre-season friendlies with an emphatic 3-0 defeat at Southern League Premier outfit Cirencester Town.
FGR manager Ady Pennock did not travel to the Corinium Stadium, instead preferring a scouting mission on Altrincham, his side’s opponents on day one of the official season next Saturday.
Apart from a lively first 20 minutes, he would not have been too impressed; none of his starting XI at Cirencester made obvious claims to unseat any of the first string which had been beaten 5-3 by Plymouth the previous evening.
Much-heralded summer signing from Barnet, Keanu Marsh-Brown, forced Glyn Garner to tip over a fine strike in each half but was otherwise fairly anonymous.
In contrast, Cirencester Town boss Brian Hughes would have been delighted with his team who put up their best display of pre-season by some way.
First-teamers Josh Parsons, Ross Langworthy, Mark Pritchett and Ben Wells were all absent for a variety of reasons but Hughes was able to start wide man Zack Kotwica, a loanee from Cheltenham Town.
Kotwica won the penalty which resulted in the middle goal of three, scored by former Forest Green stalwart Charlie Griffin. Aidan Bennett struck either side of that.
Former Rovers' striker Charlie Griffin scored from the spot
It didn’t look set to be such a comfortable afternoon for the hosts in the opening 20 minutes when FGR were full of vigour and flair, without breaking down a typically resolute Ciren defence.
But the home side matched their full-time rivals for fitness, pressed them hard, and had already begun to get a foothold in the game before Bennett opened the scoring in the 29th minute.
Minutes previously he had tested Paul White with a fizzing left foot drive, but the keeper could do nothing to stop his later effort, a cracker of a curling shot from the edge of the box after Bennett had pounced on some indecision between defenders Charlie Clough and James Jennings.
Ciren ended the excellent first half strongly with midfielders James Mortimer-Jones and Brad Hopper the stand-out performers in a fine all-round display. In truth, the game never reached those heights again.
Ten minutes into the second period the lively Kotwica was felled when jinking into the box and Griffin sent White the wrong way from the spot.
Cirencester’s superiority was complete when in the 71st minute Bennett’s terrier-like persistence saw him rob a defender and break clear before rounding keeper White to tap the ball into an empty net.
Forest Green: P. White; M. Dodson, C. Clough, A. Baldwin, J. Jennings; K. Marsh-Brown (J. Stokes 74), D. Pipe, L. McGrory, T. Bender; C. Moore, K. Guthrie.
Subs not used: E. Frear, J. Maxted.
Cirencester Town: Garner, Jones, Dunton, Brown, Hooper, Henry (Ricketts, 57), Herring, Mortimer-Jones, Griffin (Knight, 64), Bennett, Kotwica.
Sub not used: Sam Farr.
Attendance: 147.
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