FOREST GREEN ROVERS owner Dale Vince says the sacking of boss Ady Pennock just a week before the play-offs is “the opposite of a gamble”.
Rovers shocked the National League by dismissing Pennock, who had led the club to their highest ever finish of second, on Wednesday.
The Gloucestershire outfit hadn’t won in seven games and had missed out on the league title to rivals Cheltenham Town, leading to Pennock’s exit.
Last week he labelled Forest Green as “unprofessional” and said their pitch was a “disgrace” after a 2-1 home defeat to Woking.
But owner Vince says the decision was made to boost Rovers’ odds of winning the play-offs and making it into the Football League for the first time in their history.
Vince told BBC Points West: “It’s the opposite of a gamble. It was in order to give us our best possible chance in the play-offs, given our form in the last seven or eight games.
“In a way, I see it as giving us a chance, because I felt we didn’t really have a chance the way that we were heading into the play-offs. Our feeling was that we were likely to fail and our manager couldn’t turn it around, wouldn’t be able to.
“It was a big decision but we feel it is the right thing to do. Our form has been poor. At another part of the season it would have been different.”
Forest Green’s academy manager and former first team captain Scott Bartlett will take over as caretaker manager ahead of Saturday’s final game of the season against Dover Athletic but it is unclear whether he will remain in charge for the play-off fixtures.
