I'm an expert at winning desperate battles

COTTERILL MISSION TO RESCUE FOREST GREEN

- MIKE WALTERS

STEVE COTTERILL will never be daunted by the battle to keep Forest Green in the Football League after spending seven weeks in intensive care fighting Covid.

If you watched 'Breathtaking, the harrowing ITV drama on the NHS frontline during the pandemic, you wouldn't have seen any patients pedalling an exercise bike or doing step-ups on the windowsill while plugged into the oxygen supply.

And none of the characters was conducting half-time pep talks via a laptop with the sats machine (measuring oxygen saturation in the bloodstream) beeping away at his bedside.

Cotterill, 59, effectively turned his isolation room at Bristol Royal Infirmary into a gym to fight the virus.

Now he's bringing his "ultra-competitive" nature to a hilltop in sleepy Nailsworth and he's restored to rude health after steroids designed to combat the plague left his face swollen.

But if Cotterill performed miracles in Salop to keep Shrewsbury safe in mid-table from his Intensive Therapy Unit bed, now he needs another one at vegan warriors Forest Green, six points adrift of safety in League Two. Don't