Forest Green Rovers v Harrogate Town: Sulphurites must respond positively to 'embarrassing' defeat

Simon Weaver’s men head into this weekend’s fixture second in the National League, but fresh off the back of a humiliating defeat to Carlisle United in midweek.

Despite playing against nine men for more than an hour of Wednesday night’s contest, they somehow managed to lose that game 3-0, bringing to an end a run of five consecutive league victories.

That impressive sequence of results came following the Sulphurites’ previous chastening loss – a 4-1 mauling by top-of-the-table Boreham Wood – and Weaver will be hoping that his players demonstrate a similar response this time around.

They will have to do so without talismanic midfielder and leading goal-scorer Bailey Hobson, who missed Wednesday’s game at Carlisle due to a broken foot and now faces three months on the sidelines.

He joins fellow long-term casualties Tom Lees and Bryn Morris in the Town treatment room, while it remains to be seen if another attacking midfielder, Will McGowan, will be fit enough to play any part at Forest Green after picking up a glute issue against Sutton United last weekend.

Rovers, meanwhile, have made an underwhelming start to 2026/27, however they have come into a bit of form in recent weeks.

Among the bookmakers’ favourites to go up before the start of the season, the Gloucestershire outfit had been finding wins rather difficult to come by, and thus find themselves stuck in the bottom half of the division.

They kicked-off 2026/27 with back-to-back victories, then lost three on the spin, before going on to take seven points from the next nine on offer.

But, after recording a 4-0 success over struggling Gateshead on September 12, they failed to come out on top in any of their next six matches in all competitions.

That winless sequence was ended in convincing fashion when the men from the New Lawn thrashed Chesham United 5-0 in the fourth qualifying round of the FA Cup, but only after the lowly National League South outfit had held them to a goalless draw the first time the sides met.

Then, last Saturday, Rovers fell behind with just than a minute of their game at Barrow gone, only for the contest to be abandoned shortly afterwards due to a waterlogged pitch.

They did however enjoy a 2-0 home triumph over Eastleigh in midweek.

Forest Green’s cause has not been aided by the loss of manager Robbie Savage, whose departure for League One Peterborough United played out very publicly earlier this month.

Since Savage moved on, a trio of the club’s coaching staff – Josh Bowen, Jonathan Gould and Yan Klukowski – have been taking charge of first-team matters in a rather unusual managerial set-up.

Forest Green have had the better of their six previous meetings with Harrogate, though Town’s two wins over Rovers have come on each of their last two trips to the New Lawn.

The most recent showdown between the clubs came in January 2024 when the Sulphurites eased to a 2-0 success over a struggling team that was destined to be relegated from League Two later in the year thanks to goals from Jack Muldoon and Abraham Odoh.

In April 2022, Town knocked Rovers off the top of League Two courtesy of a surprise 3-1 victory, which ended a run of three consecutive losses in the fixture.

On target that day were Muldoon, who converted an early penalty, Jack Diamond and Lloyd Kerry.

Harrogate’s one prior defeat at Forest Green came when they went down 2-1 in March 2021.