DEAR Father Christmas,

I hope you do not think I am being greedy as so many good things have happened in the last two years. Our club is on a firm footing. We have a good ground, good players, and a growing crowd and at the moment a fine league position.

In the season of goodwill I am asking for just a little more and knowing your generosity, hope that you will make this time of year rewarding for all of us Forest Green fans.

Your reindeer will find the way to our pitch and may enjoy nibbling the grass. Do not worry if they do what animals often do. It will be totally compatible with the club’s organic philosophy.

The requests are mostly football- based, but I am sure you will understand them.

Firstly can we please have a cutting edge? Too often we do everything right but fail to trouble the opposing defence. We play good football in two thirds of the pitch, but are limp and lacklustre in the important final third – the vital one! This was especially evident on Saturday against Macclesfield.

Playing with the low sun behind us we should have attacked with more gusto and gumption. We were too gentle – a sharp cutting edge would have turned our dominance into goals. Could you please give two of our players some special presents?

I refer to OJ Koroma and Magno Viera. They are really good players indeed, being increasingly athletic and always looking promising. That however is as far as it goes. They need something extra – devilment, decisiveness, perhaps determination.

A little help from you will certainly help them fulfil their potential. Until this happens my request for a cutting edge cannot be answered.

Can you also place some patience in Reece Styche’s stocking? It seems Reece is now a permanent substitute and when he gets onto the pitch he tries so hard to succeed.

He needs to settle and when he does so he is a match winner. He nearly proved this on Saturday with a quick turn and shot that goalkeeper Cronin saved brilliantly. Reece can provide the missing cutting edge. Can you please mention it when you give manager David Hockaday his alarm clock.

The alarm clock is for the team as a whole. They are very slow at the start of the game – just when they should be improving themselves a clock with a loud ring please and if it is set for 10 minutes before kick-off it may have the desired effect.

Can we please have six points from our three matches against Newport and Kidderminster? You will appreciate this is not a greed ask, but one I think the team deserve.

Apart from an alarm clock, could you please give manager David even more understanding? I know he has much already but it is contract time and some have signed, some have not.

The manager knows and respects players reasons for signing or not, and realises the importance of maintaining a positive dialogue, but I know from cricket this is not always easy. Agents can get in the way.

Now finally I come to Gary Seward our passionate assistant manager. Gary is so much part of the FGR experience, as he showed on Saturday. When Chris Stokes scored the equaliser Gary gave the nearby steward a huge hug.

This demonstrates good judgement as perhaps she is the only steward worth hugging, but he sometimes gets cross with officials and none of us would wish to see him getting into trouble. We need his energy on the touchline, not banished to the stand. Help him keep calm!

One word of warning Father Christmas – no ties for chairman Dale. He does not wear them being totally consistent with his views on such matters. Instead give him a huge thank you card. He will know why, and an increasing number of supporters do so as well.

Thank you for reading this – I hope you do not think I have been greedy but if you could start with the cutting edge - glee will come to Gloucestershire.