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Forest Green to become smallest club to ever play in Football League

Forest Green manager Mark Cooper was delighted after the club sealed promotion from the National League to League Two with a 3-1 win over Tranmere Rovers in the playoff final.

The club hails from Nailsworth in Gloucestershire, and with a population of 5,794 it will become the smallest place to ever have a club in the Football League.

"It's an unbelievable achievement to put a village team in the Football League," Cooper said. "When you're on the outside, you think everybody is earning 10 grand a week, but when you get on the inside you realise that's not strictly true.

"We have to pay, sometimes, a little bit more to players because of where we are. We have a competitive budget but that doesn't guarantee anything.

"I want to enjoy [the victory] and I want to savour it and full credit to the players, they were magnificent."

It will be the first time in the club's 128-year history that they have played in the Football League, and Cooper is excited for the challenge ahead.

"We've got some great games, Newport, Swindon, some big crowds, Coventry, so it will be fun getting them up that hill, that's for certain," Cooper told the BBC. "We're not going to go in there to make the numbers up. Knowing what the chairman's like, he will want to be a threat in that league.

"This National League is the hardest league to get out of, one trillion percent, because with so many big teams in there, it's a graveyard.

"Next year we might not be the favourites every week, but a bit of pressure comes off us."

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