WELCOME to a brand new sports column for the summer aimed at analysing and highlighting clubs and organisations within the Gloucestershire and South Gloucestershire regions.

We may be on the edge of summer but there is winter business to sort out beforehand.

And at the top of the agenda, I would like to add my personal congratulations to chairman Dale Vince, manager Mark Cooper and the whole staff and players at Forest Green Rovers for achieving an incredible piece of history for the Nailsworth club.

Forest Green have been banging on the door of promotion to the Football League for a few years now but, on Sunday, they achieved it.

It was a blistering 3-1 victory over Tranmere Rovers at a sun-bathed Wembley. Forest Green had won four points out of six during the regular season against Tranmere. They drew 1-1 at The New Lawn and won 1-0 in the return.

The Wirral-based club finished the regular season in second place behind champions Lincoln City, with Forest Green in third.

Forest Green went into the Wembley showdown as, arguably, the underdogs although with the advantage of having been to the home of English football 12 months earlier when losing out on promotion to Grimsby Town.

Back in 2016, Forest Green were injury ravaged but this time, Cooper had strength to go for it.

Two goals from Kayne Woolery and one from Christian Doidge this time around sent Forest Green to the Football League where they will be playing the likes of relegated League One sides Coventry City and Chesterfield and enjoying a West Country derby with Swindon Town, a cross-border derby with Newport County and, of course, the big Gloucestershire derby with Cheltenham Town.

Vince has his eye on bigger things than just League Two as well and believes he and the club can rise to the challenge of reaching the Championship in the future.

What finances Vince and the board will make available to Cooper for strengthening the side in certain positions to be able to compete at the higher level are in hand, but, for now, they are just rejoicing – and so they should – in a brilliant achievement.

I would also like to say well done to my colleague Ashley Loveridge, the sports editor of the Stroud News and Journal, who has been chronicling the trials and tribulations at The New Lawn for years. It was also a terrific achievement for Gloucester rugby to reach the European Challenge Cup final this season. However, they were not able to complete the mission and lost out to crack French side Stade Francais last Friday night by 25-17 in Edinburgh.

The faces of the Cherry and Whites players and the faithful who made the expensive journey up north – with hotel rooms costing upwards of £250 to £300 a night – said it all after the final whistle.

The loss also put paid to Gloucester’s chances of playing in the European Champions Cup next season as they will not have a place in the complicated play-offs that are about to take place.

A great semi-final win against La Rochelle in France was the highlight of the Challenge Cup campaign but that falls into insignificance if you don’t go on to win the big prize.

Gloucestershire Cricket suffered a mixed bag over the weekend, losing to Somerset at home but beating Sussex away in the One-Day Cup. Their backbone has been thanks to Jack Taylor who completed a fourth half-century in the competition during the away win on the south coast.

And there is a special ‘well done’ to a local cricket club who have shown you cannot keep a good side down.

Now that Dursley RFC have fantastic facilities, Stinchcombe Stragglers – with the new moniker of Old Boys attached to the name – are back. After disbanding a few years ago, a group of players started it up again. They played their first home game against Stroud fourths on Saturday and, no matter that they are playing down the league structure, the fact that they are playing at all is proof that you can never keep a good side down.