Tuffley Rovers AFC

Neil Mustoe’s Tuffley Rovers squad have gone 16 days without football and played just one in the last 30 days, as their 2024/25 season stutters to a close. However, Mustoe will demanding one final effort from his squad when Corsham Town visit on Tuesday evening, knowing he leads a team ready to re-write recent history.

Rovers’ promotion at the end of the 2014/15 season has been followed by ten consecutive seasons in the Hellenic League’s Premier Division competition and although the campaigns the Rovers manager has presided over since taking charge half-way through the 2021/22 season have seen his side battling to retain their status, the last 16 months have seen a dramatic improvement that saw his team finish 14th in 2023/24 and then build on that through the current campaign.

If his Rovers squad can produce one final performance of note, they have the potential to achieve three outcomes that will create history during this spell in Step 5 football.

A much improved defence have kept eleven clean-sheets in all competitions, to date, and one more will make this the joint best campaign since they started playing at Step 5 in 2015/16 (matching the 12 during 2022/23). If they can prevent visitors Corsham from scoring that will also guarantee them the point that they need to all but secure a 10th place finish, with the visiting Town currently three points behind, with two to play and an inferior goal difference that is unlikely to be sufficiently improved unless they defeat Rovers.

Another significant record in Mustoe’s sight is the one he set out to achieve at the start of the season, which is to exceed 50 points for the first time since the club’s halcyon days in the late 1990s. Since the start of the 2015/16 campaign their best total is 50 points, in 2016/17, with the next best the 49 points that Mustoe achieved last term.

Finally, Rovers know that a win would guarantee a 10th place finish but it would also mean that in league competitions Mustoe’s charges would have a number of wins equal to their number of defeats (15 of each), which has not been achieved since the relative success of the 2016/17 season.

Of course, Corsham Town will arrive at Glevum Park with their sights firmly on passing Rovers in the league table and knowing that their hosts have yet to record a win against Town at home since Corsham joined the Premier Division in 2021/22. In fact, Rovers have yet to score a home goal against Tuesday evening’s opposition and have only scored once in any league game against The Quarrymen….albeit that was a 1-0 win this season, when Mustoe and his squad returned from the Southbank Ground with all three points.

Tuffley Rovers’ Uhlsport Hellenic League Premier Division campaign will draw to a relatively early conclusion this week, as they play their final three fixtures of the 2024/25 season in an 8 day period from 1 March to 8 March, all of which will take place at Glevum Park.

Having concluded their travels with a 2-0 win at Pershore Town last Saturday, Rovers will host Roman Glass St George on 1 March (3pm), before hosting Brimscombe & Thrupp on 4 March (7:45pm) and then finishing their season against Corsham Town on 8 March (3pm).

Neil Mustoe’s side suffered the disappointment of a midweek defeat to Hallen FC in the GFA Challenge Trophy, the final cup competition in which they were participating this season, meaning they know their final three league games will bring down the curtain on a campaign that has brought many highs, but might also be considered one that ultimately ends with a sense that it could have been even better.

The huge positives are a near certain improvement on a 14th place finish in 2023/24 (Rovers currently sit 10th) and a real opportunity to post a best points tally in the club’s modern Hellenic League Premier Division history. Mustoe’s side currently have 47 points and need four more to hit their highest total since returning to the division in 2015/16.

Roman Glass St George will arrive at Glevum Park with hopes of a play-off place still very much alive, before relegation threatened Brimscombe & Thrupp will need a win to save their season. That will be followed by the final day for Rovers, on 8 March, when current 11th place side Corsham Town will be the visitors. Whether that game will be pivotal to Mustoe’s hopes for season-on-season improvement will depend on the two games preceding it.

Eight days to go….

It has taken until 18 January but it appear Tuffley Rovers will finally play in 2025, with the weather now significantly improved from the wind, rain and deep freeze experienced over the past few weeks, and Neil Mustoe’s squad will welcome Worcester Raiders as the visitors to Glevum Park on Saturday afternoon (3pm KO).

After a quiet few weeks, Mustoe’s charges will be straight back into a hectic fixture schedule, which will see them host Raiders on Saturday afternoon, then face trips to Stonehouse Town in the Floodlit Cup and Hartpury University in the Premier Division on Tuesday and Saturday, respectively.

Rovers will then host Shortwood United in the Hellenic League Marsh Challenge Cup on 28 January, before hosting Westfields on 1 February. So, 22 days without a game, followed by five games in 15 days!

Mustoe will need to look carefully at his numbers, but will definitely be without Mark Pritchett on Saturday, as the experienced centre-half serves out a suspension incurred during Rovers’ Boxing Day defeat against Longlevens. Otherwise, the Rovers boss is looking at an almost fully-fit and available squad, leaving him with some difficult decisions around selection.

The official match-day programme for the fixture is now available online, with printed copies on sale at the turnstiles.

Tuffley Rovers will host local rivals Longlevens at Glevum Park on Boxing Day (3pm KO) looking to improve on their poor Christmas record against the side jointly managed by Craig Martin and Michael Palmer.

Neil Mustoe has overseen one win against Levens – last season’s Boxing Day fixture at Sawmills End brought a 3-1 win – but was in charge for the 4-0 defeat at Glevum Park in 2022 and had a watching brief when Rovers lost 1-0 at home in 2021, days after his appointment was confirmed.

Rovers last home victory against Longlevens came on 26 December 2016, when Warren Mann scored the only goal of the game, the only season where both Premier Division meetings between the two sides have gone in Rovers’ favour.

Earlier this season Levens won 1-0 in their first league meeting of 2024/25, with former Rovers player Jack Beardsell getting the only goal of the game.

The game is always a competitive fixture and both sides will be sure to battle for the Boxing Day points…and for bragging rights until the next meeting!

On Saturday Tuffley Rovers will host their opposition for the second time in three weeks, but it is only their eighth home league fixture of the season, with twelve away games already completed. That imbalance is nothing compared to visitors Mangotsfield United, who will arrive at Glevum Park having played all their fifteen league games away from home.

The Mangos have been on the road since the opening day of the season due to their home pitch being converted to a 3G surface and although that nears completion, they aren’t quite ready to end their time on the road just yet! They have three more away games to play after their visit to Glevum Park, two of them in November and before they are due to play their first home game on 23 November.

Rovers have a poor record against Mangotsfield, although the hosts go into the game off the back of three consecutive wins in all competitions, whilst the visitors have recorded three draws in a row.

Manager Neil Mustoe will see his team look to record a first Hellenic League win against their visitors, a task made all the tougher by an ever-growing injury list. Warren Mann and Josh Stevens are long-term absentees, but they have been joined on the treatment table by a plethora of players in recent weeks, including Sammie Hicks and Macaulay Herbert. Corey Warrington is suspended for the game, after picking up a fifth caution of the season in last weekend’s win at Brimscombe & Thrupp, whilst Mark Pritchett is not available for selection.

Mustoe also faces an anxious wait on the availability of Callum McGuirk, who limped off in midweek, so it could be a depleted Tuffley team that take to the field this weekend. Youngsters Ollie Hambling and Gino Valenti have been added to the squad (with both in line for a debut appearance).

On Tuesday evening Tuffley Rovers will host a very much in-form Hartpury University side who will arrive at Glevum Park for the first time in a Hellenic League fixture, with the two previous competitive meetings between the clubs having been cup ties.

Rovers come into the game off the back of an impressive performance and win against the previously unbeaten Hereford Pegasus on Saturday, whilst The Acorns (Hartpury’s nickname) defeated Fairford Town 5-1 in the FA Cup.

The official match-day programme is now available online, with printed copies available to purchase from the turnstiles.

A 3pm Saturday afternoon kick-off in a Hellenic League Premier Division fixture between two Gloucestershire sides might not sound that unusual, but when Tuffley Rovers visit Lydney Town on 10 August it will be only the second time that the two teams have met at 3pm on a Saturday since the two clubs started competing in the Premier Division in the 2015/16 season.

The one time the two teams did meet at the traditional English kick-off time, in 2021/22, Town ran out comprehensive 4-0 winners with Rich Cox at the Rovers helm at that time. There had been one other 3pm kick-off prior to that, back in 2018/19 when Paul Carter missed a penalty for Rovers in a 0-0 draw.

Last season Rovers recorded a rare win at Swan Road, with the 3-2 victory their first Hellenic League Premier Division win as visitors there, and they’ve only taken 6 points from seven visits, with 1-1 draws in 2015/16 and 2022/23 the other occasions when they’ve secured a point.

Whatever the history of the game, Neil Mustoe’s side will arrive at The Recreation Ground in good spirits, after defeating Slimbridge 3-0 in midweek which was a first win against The Swans in many years. Perhaps that might be a good omen for The Rovers this weekend? History is for the making, as much as anything.