Forest Green finish in a respectable position in the top 10 but have little reason to be happy with their season which at one point promised so much. There was talk of a promotion challenge in the summer given the solid backing of the owner in terms of new signings given to Dave Hockaday. He was able to bring in good players like Magno Vieira, Ben Wright and Paul Green to an already talent-packed and deep squad and there was definitely a feeling of expectation and encouragement among the fans at the start of the campaign. And indeed Rovers were among the early pace-setters after losing none of their first seven games and winning five of them. They were playing impressive possession football, taking good care of the ball and posing a constant threat up front with their mobile and fast strikers. They only lost to Grimsby in their first 12 games in the league and looked every inch a promotion candidate with the back four standing strong too when it needed to. Wins away at good sides like Hereford and Macclesfield lifted the mood too but October was off to a poor start and indeed four defeats in a row put the team slightly off course. They were unlucky in two of these games when direct rivals Luton and Mansfield scored late goals to beat them but Hockaday remained committed to his philosophy of playing and Forest Green remained a very good and dangerous side. They remained among the teams firmly in the play-off places as the calendar year started to wind down and were off to a fantastic start of 2013 when they thrashed local rivals Newport County 5:0 away from home with striker James Norwood grabbing the spotlight with a superb hat-trick. The game started a run of just one loss in nine games and there was definitely a talk of title challenge come February with teams around them faltering. However, a narrow and slightly undeserved 1:0 loss to direct rivals Kidderminster in February really knocked the confidence of the team and things were never right after that. Suddenly the goals stopped flowing while the midfield was not as imposing and solid as it used to be. The team managed to win just two more games until the end of the season, against struggling sides like Southport and Ebbsfleet, and eventually fizzled out of the play-off race as Grimsby made a big gap on them and sealed their place in the top-five with a couple of weeks to spare. As for Hockaday, he was left to rue the mental brittleness of his side and the sudden loss of form but he will be determined to have a better go next season when some good new players are going to arrive again.
