Cheltenham Town 1 Gillingham 0

Match 66/12/1019 - Saturday, 13th April 2013 - League Two

Cheltenham Town (0) 1 Hector 67
Gillingham (0) 0
Att. 4,939

Entrance: £22
Programme: £3.00
Mileage: 300/5,659

Match Report

So the champagne stayed on ice. But, given that it has been chilling for the best part of 50 years, it doesn't do any harm to let it wait for another week and enjoy it with the benefit of home comforts and a full house more than ready to acclaim the champions.

Port Vale's concession of a 93rd minute goal at Rochdale meant that Gillingham's second away defeat of the season at Cheltenham was reduced to the loss of just a point and another solitary point next Saturday against AFC Wimbledon will be enough to pop the corks on, what will be for I suspect, the majority of their fans, a first-ever divisional title.

The 1,449 travelling support had arrived at Whaddon Road with an expectancy that the job would be completed and that the party could commence but a commited display from the home side, chasing an automatic promotion place of their own, stopped the celebrations in their tracks.

At another point in the season, when points were more precious with Vale breathing down the Gills necks, this would have been considered a poor performance, but the security of a seven point lead with three games remaining allowed the supporters to cut the team a little bit of slack and focus on a big finish at Priestfield.

Throughout the game, Cheltenham showed a touch more urgency, a sense that they needed the result far more than Gillingham and although there was little in the game, the result was just about right.

There was also an inevitability about the result, given the hostile, if anything associated with Cheltenham could be considered hostile, reception that awaited Martin Allen on his return to a former club, that according to some ruined the Gloucestershire club. The noisy, boisterous following from the Medway Towns easily drowned out whatever was thrown at the Gillingham manager, who had been quite open with pre-match comments that he knew he had made mistakes when in charge at Whaddon Road.

The first half was principally Cheltenham's in terms of possession and the lively winger, Jermaine McGlashan causing considerable problems on the right flank. He set up chances for Byron Harrison, Kaid Mohamed and Russell Penn whilst Gillingham's best chance fell to Danny Kedwell who saw his shot well saved by Scott Brown as the ball headed for the top corner.

The second half progressed in much the same fashion with the home side in the ascendancy, with McGlashan impressive, but also deeply irritating with his ability to go to ground at the slightest touch, one such time earning Andy Frampton a booking.

The winning goal came on 67 minutes on the back of a rising sense of injustice towards referee Gavin Ward. A disputed free kick led to a corner from which the towering Michael Hector rose the highest to firmly plant a header past Stuart Nelson.

Gillingham mounted something of a rally to salvage the point that would have been enough to seal the title on the day and Adam Barrett, thrown forward as a supplementary attacker, brought a decent save out of Brown but it was the home side that made the real chances to double their advantage.

The news from Rochdale signalled that neither side had suffered too badly from the outcome of the Whaddon Road encounter and both go forward into their final two fixtures with their eventual destiny in their own hands and the fingers of those hands ready to pop those champagne corks.

Cheltenham Town 1 Gillingham 2

Match 59/10/877 - Sunday, 27 March 2011 - League Two

Cheltenham Town (1) 1 Elliott 3
Gillingham (0) 2 McDonald 85, 90
Att. 3,157

Entrance: £14
Programme: £3
Mileage (return journey): 151/8,958

Match Report

With just five minutes remaining, Gills ace marksman Cody McDonald was fetching the ball from the Cheltenham net and racing back to the centre circle. Not for him were the thoughts of relief that a point had been salvaged and the cause of much celebration from the 500-plus Gillingham fans that had made the Sunday journey west.

Cody’s urgency was well founded, within three minutes he had the ball in the net again and the recovery was complete and three points were in the bag. It was a thrilling end to the match and put the gloss on our football weekend that had brought two victories without much in the way of inspiration.

Gillingham once again had a very poor first half; they went behind to an early goal from the big Cheltenham captain Steve Elliott and in general failed to come to terms with a difficult, uneven surface. McDonald had a couple of good chances from which he might have done better and overall the visitors were fortunate to go into the dressing room at the end of the first 45 just a goal behind.

After just three minutes, Matt Lawrence showed his displeasure with Alan Julian after being forced to concede a corner by the keeper’s hesitation and it was to prove costly. The resultant corner was woefully cleared by Joe Martin back to the taker, Danny Andrews, whose second cross was knocked in at close range by Elliott.

Following an amazing chain of events Gillingham were lucky not to go further behind on 40 minutes. Julian raced from his penalty area to clear but, under pressure, only managed to find Robins’ striker Jeff Goulding who lobbed the ball towards the unguarded goal. His effort struck a post and the keeper was able to catch the rebound as he sprinted back to his goal, his next task was to avoid carrying the ball over the line as his momentum threatened, this he managed, holding the ball at arms’ length as his torso crossed the line.

Gillingham were a more potent force in the second half. Akinfenwa wasted a close range header early in the half and following the introduction of Danny Spiller and Luke Rooney they made all of the running in the last 20 minutes of the game. There were near misses aplenty before McDonald finally found the net with five minutes remaining. Barry Fuller crossed; McDonald headed against the bar but reacted quickly to net the rebound with a second header.

The joyous 559 that had travelled down from Kent had little time to settle back into their seats before they were celebrating the winning goal. McDonald played Akinfenwa in on goal but he was forced wide only to stand up the perfect cross for Cody to head home. Spark pandemonium, the weekend had been salvaged in the final five minutes but not before Cheltenham’s Marlon Pack produced a heart-stopping moment with a 30 yard effort that smacked against Julian’s right hand post.

Cheltenham 1 Gillingham 0

Match 06/07/623 - Saturday, 11th August 2007 - League One

Cheltenham Town (1) 1 Gillespie 24
Gillingham (0) 0
Att. 4,008

Entrance: £18
Programme: £2.50
Mileage 324/637

Match Report Match Video

Just about everything that could go wrong on opening day went wrong on the pitch at Whaddon Road.

The floods that had engulfed Cheltenham in July had given way to a hot day (when is opening day anything other than hot) and with heavy holiday traffic the M25 was a stop-start journey that left us sweating both physically and metaphorically as the time started to slip away. Finally free of the biggest car park in the world, reasonable time was made and we paid at the gate with time to spare.

Looking out to the Malvern Hills beyond, Whaddon Road could be a picturesque setting, unfortunately the older stands that had seen them through their non-league days have been replaced by Meccano outfits that have no character whatsoever. All very neat and tidy, but totally soulless.

A word for Cheltenham’s match day programme, voted best in League One last term and will certainly be a contender again and good value at £2.50.

There will be plenty of recriminations aimed at the referee and linesman, but Gillingham must look at themselves for this defeat. They were frankly awful and when, back in the car, we come to the conclusion that Mulligan was our man of the match for 30 minutes of effort as substitute, it says much about the rest. The game was settled by a goal that clearly looked offside and following two penalty appeals for handball that went unanswered, Gillingham went down to 9 men with Cox and Lomas seeing red. Cheltenham also lost a man to another laughable decision that led us to believe the referee Melin had completely lost the plot.

So for 588 Gillingham fans that had made the journey down to Gloucestershire they watched that pre-season optimism drain away in 90 very drab minutes.