Paul “Oggy” Hunt and Frank Gregan

Frank Gregan was the manager, and Paul Hunt was the player, who, among a team brimming with talent, was a driving force behind FGR’s meteoric rise in the 1990s from the lower levels of the Southern League to its current position in the Conference National League.

 

Some people might say, oh yes, just because everybody remembers them they are being called legends. Well they are wrong. They are.

 

Paul had played with Frank, who became Forest Green’s manager in 1994, at Frank’s previous club, Andover, and was well known to Frank as a man who could turn matches. Paul started his career at Swindon Town and it was to Paul that Frank turned to in 1996, when the team needed strengthening to make an upwards move in the Southern League, following their transfer into the Southern Division the year before.

 

Having joined the Southern League from the Hellenic League back in 1982, much had been expected back then, but it took 14 years and Paul Hunt and Frank Gregan to finally fulfil the expectations of those connected to the Club.

 

Rovers won the Southern Division and went into the Southern League Premier Division for the first time in their history for the 1997-98 season, with no small thanks to Pauls goal tally.

 

Many supporters were thinking about “consolidation” in the premier division, but not Paul or Frank, or Trevor Horsley, they had bigger ideas and bigger ambitions.

 

The Premier Division was taken by storm and in a momentous match towards the end of the season, nearly 3000 supporters crammed into The Lawn to see Rovers march on towards National League football.

 

In August 1998, Rovers played their first ever Conference National game losing against Rushden and Diamonds, but it took a further 5 losses before Rovers secured their first ever win against none other than ex Football League team Doncaster Rovers, who had been relegated the year before. Who scored the winning goal, well, none other than Paul Hunt, in front of a hostile home crowd, another part of Rovers History had been written that day.

 

Paul was injured towards the end of the season, which unfortunately left him sitting out the FA Trophy Final at Wembley against Kingstonian, how things might have turned out if he had played, nobody knows.

 

The 1999-2000 season saw Rovers in their second season in the Conference National League and what a season it was.

 

The elation of the previous 3 years was all but forgotten by half time of the last game of the season against Kettering. 0-0 at half time and Rovers were relegated for only the second time in their history, but that was not to be the story of the day. Paul had been biting his nails on the substitutes bench all afternoon when, with 15 minutes to go, Frank unleashed Paul on an unsuspecting Kettering rear-guard. Within minutes Paul sent a swerving shot into the net from his weaker left peg, and moved Rovers out of the relegation zone. Mark McGregor added a second goal minutes later and with other results going Rovers way, FGR lived to fight another day in the Conference National.

 

Frank moved on at the end of 2000, leaving Paul at the Club and a second appearance in the Trophy Final followed in 2001, but Paul couldn’t work his magic that day, with Rovers losing 1-0 to Canvey Island.

 

Paul moved on from the Rovers playing squad shortly after, but stayed in contact with the club working as a coach with the youth team for xx years.

 

In the Five years that Paul and Frank were with Forest Green Rovers, they were instrumental in moving the Club from the lower echelons of the Southern League into Conference National football and two FA Trophy Finals to boot.