Forest Green Rovers forward Christian Doidge believes that his team have progressed in leaps and bounds after a 2-1 extra-time defeat to Stockport County.
Doidge’s late equaliser wasn’t enough for Rovers to progress to the second round of the famous competition, but there is a belief that the National League side have improved in the last six months.
“We are obviously disappointed, but I think we can take a lot from this performance.” Doidge said following the defeat. “How I feel after this game is really good considering we played these (Stockport) at The New Lawn last year (in League Two) and they really did a number on us. We were like a different team and that just shows the strides that we are doing as a football club at the moment.”
Fraser Horsfall opened the scoring for the Hatters in the 64th minute after a volley from just inside of the box nestled into the top-left corner of Jamie Searle’s goal.
Doidge grabbed an equaliser for Rovers in the 82nd minute of the game, which forced the first round tie to go to extra-time.
However, it was heartbreak for Forest Green when former Cheltenham Town loanee, Kyle Wootton, tapped home into an empty net in the 97th minute after Isaac Olaofe’s deflected effort found his feet with ease.
The 32-year-old has boosted his goal scoring tally to 10 goals in all competitions this season, having scored seven in the National League, two in the FA Cup and one in the National League Cup.
“I am obviously happy with the goal return,” Doidge said on his tally for this season so far. “I think I probably could have played better in a few games, but I will take where I am at the moment, but there is plenty left to come.”
The former Hibernian and Bolton forward has had the full backing of manager, Steve Cotterill, since returning to the club last January. On what Cotterill said to him before coming on and scoring on Saturday, Doidge said: “Just go on and try and get a goal, I am an experienced player now and I know why the manager would put me on at that time in the game and I am glad that I managed to do that.
Going into extra-time, I don’t know how it looked from the outside, but the way it felt when we were on there (the pitch) is that we were probably in a lot of control of the game and they have managed to nick one.”
Forest Green now have multiple forward options this season, with Doidge, Harry Cardwell, Joe Quigley and Tyrese Omotoye at their disposal.
On the union between the striking options, Doidge said: “I think we are a really good group together, there are no ‘striker haters’ there, I have definitely had that in the past with other football clubs, but we want the best for each other. When Harry has played he has got those two goals and Quigs is still waiting for that one, but some of his performances have been really good. He was really big for us (against Stockport).”
SC on Joe Quigley after a first start since September: "I thought he was excellent; I thought he was really strong and gave their defenders today a good working over. There won’t be too many that will come here and do that and he did that to them."#WeAreFGR
— Alfie Ryan (@AlfieRJourno) November 2, 2024
Rovers next play on Tuesday night in the National League Cup against Stoke City Under-21s. Having had the difficulty of the side playing 120 minutes at the weekend and then to go again on a short turnaround, Doidge stated: “We are definitely going to have to use our squad, aren’t we? Any chance to play football, you want to do it so we are looking forward to it.”
