Read all about our visit to 5th Tier Cheltenham Town for their fixture against Braintree Town at Whaddon Road, Cheltenham.
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Where:
General Info:
Date of Visit: Tuesday, 6.10.15, 19:45
Club Name: Cheltenham Town FC
Nickname: The Robins
Founded: 1887
Stadium: Whaddon Road, Cheltenham, Capacity: 7,266
League and Rank: Conference National (5th Tier) 2/24
Official Site | Wikipedia
The Visit
הOur visit to Cheltenham—a perfectly ordinary, typical town represented by the affectionately named Robins—was undoubtedly one of our most special trips, purely down to the incredible effort the club put into hosting their surprise guests. We kicked the day off by wandering down the greyish high street of the town. The most fascinating thing we noticed during our two-hour stroll was the rather high number of squashed pigeons on the road. WTF? Are they driving madly fast, or are the pigeons here just flying incredibly slow?!?! Aside from that intriguing observation and a few shops, this remote hole didn't have much else to offer a tourist.
We had arranged our visit to the red-and-white club—who were sitting second in the fifth tier, the Conference National—with their Chairman, Paul Baker. He was friendly and accommodating from the very first contact months before we arrived. When we pulled up to the stadium gates in our hire car and announced ourselves as his guests, the massive red iron gates swung wide open, revealing a car park that would soon fill up ahead of the top-of-the-table clash against sixth-placed Braintree (which, for some reason, literally translates to "brain-tree" in our language). Whaddon Road, nestled in a quiet residential area, is also home to Gloucester AFC, who represent the nearby county town. That club is less successful, playing in the sixth tier (Conference North) and sitting near the bottom of the table.
The four of us strolled into the lavish, burgundy-carpeted lounge, which looked straight out over the pitch, thirsty for a pint and eager to meet our hosts. Even though we were already decked out in scarves and shirts from the club shop, the few people in the lounge looked at us like we’d just dropped in from the moon. They can smell our fresh shirts, we thought to ourselves.
We grabbed a table near the windows overlooking the beautiful pitch, and soon enough, two older gents in suits approached us. They introduced themselves as Paul Baker (the Chairman) and David Bloxham, a board member. Both were incredibly polite and full of smiles. We got straight down to business and asked to present them with the Cinderella crest. Paul suggested we do the honours on the pitch, so we followed him out, walking round the outside of the lounge to present the club with a wooden shield bearing our crest, motto, and the date of our visit.
Paul apologised that he couldn't stay with us any longer and handed the hosting duties over to David, who, with boyish enthusiasm, immediately offered us a round of pints on the house. It turned out he had cleared his entire pre-match schedule just to chat with us. The five of us sat in the lounge for a solid hour, happily chatting away about football, club management, and everything in between. We'd never experienced anything like it!
David was genuinely fascinated by the project and asked what made us choose his club. He wanted to know where else we'd been and how often we do these trips... The conversation flowed easily as we traded stories about our respective lives. Needless to say, the local fans—who turn up every week to watch the team in the freezing cold without getting so much as a free glass of tap water from the club—looked on with mild disappointment...
Kick-off was approaching. David went off to attend to his duties, but not before we raised another pint to English football and our fantastic welcome, and we headed out to the stands like proper fans.
We took our seats in the main stand among the local families. Behind the goals, as per usual, were the ultras of both camps: about five hundred reds for the home side, facing off against a small, high-quality firm of about twenty Braintree fans behind the opposite goal. In total, 2,097 fans watched the thriller. That's a very respectable turnout for a midweek fifth-tier fixture in freezing 5-degree weather—and roughly 2,000 times the crowd our own lovely top-flight team, Hapoel Ra'anana, manages to draw.
Among the Braintree fans, we spotted Daniel, a lad we were astonished to have bumped into the night before at the Hitchin game. It turns out he is a hardcore groundhopper (someone who jumps at any chance to watch games across different leagues in England) and follows his home side, Braintree, to all their away fixtures too. You can check out his Facebook page here
The match kicked off.
We’ll spare you the minute-by-minute commentary, because it wasn't exactly a footballing masterclass. Even their tall, blonde striker Harry Pell, who was billed as the man who could do it all, got sucked into the ineffective, scrappy trench warfare from both sides. Gary Johnson, the successful Robins manager (and formerly of our beloved Yeovil Town), disappointed with a 'hoof it up the pitch and hope for the best' strategy. But even he couldn't prevent the shock opening goal in the 90th minute, scored by the visitors' Edgar, who came on as a sub in the 60th minute. Our mate Daniel filmed the goal:
A few minutes later, deep into stoppage time, just as we were certain we were witnessing a shock defeat for the home side, Waters (also a sub, brought on in the 67th minute) grabbed the equaliser, much to the dismay of Fan No. 1...
By the way, we completely failed to predict this result on our traditional pre-match betting slip, having been absolutely certain the points were staying at home... But we're used to that by now.
After the match, once everyone had headed home, we asked one of the half-asleep stewards to capture the moment one of our very own celebrated his 40th birthday right there on the pitch at Cheltenham.
Happy birthday, mate!
