Robins Earn 2nd Double Of The Season At Swindon

By Laurenceh
March 14 2003

After a crucial weekend win over fellow strugglers Mansfield Town, Cheltenham had the chance to move up 3 places in division 2 to 21st if they could beat Swindon.

Cheltenham made the brighter start to the game winning 2 early corners, the 2nd of which nearly resulted in the Robins taking the lead when Martin Devaney blasted a right footed volley towards goal, which goalkeeper Bart Griemink managed to hold confortably.

Swindon started looking dangerous after that and hit the post from a deflected shot on 16 minutes. With plenty of noise coming from both sets of fans it clearly inspired Cheltenham on to play some excellent possession football not allowing Swindon anywhere near the ball. This type of approach forced Swindon to give the ball away in the 32nd minute for Martin Devaney to race through and have his shot deflected behind for a corner, John Brough headed a clearance through midfield for Mark Yates to send forward for Devaney to latch onto and slot past Griemink into the back of the net. This sparked jubilant scenes from the 732 fans who had made the 33 mile trip, when it suddenly occurred to everyone that the double could be done over arch-rivals (for this season anyway) Swindon after beating them at Whaddon Road in September.

It was only 8 minutes later that the visiting fans were celebrating again, when John Brough volleyed with the side of his foot a Grant McCann free kick from the left and planted it past Griemink after it took a deflection on it’s way to the back of the net.

2-0 was how it stayed until half time despite an attempt from Sam Parkin being blocked by Cheltenham keeper, Shane Higgs and a Jon Beswetherick header go wide.

At half time, Swindon switched to a 4-3-3 formation with Eric Sabin coming on for Matt Hewlett, this looked like it had done the trick early on while Swindon were attacking very positively, this nearly paid off a few minutes later when Higgs failed to hold a shot from the right but while Sabin tried to reach the loose ball John Brough thumped it away.

Martin Devaney came close to adding a 3rd when he shot just wide of the post after an excellent one-two with Marvin Brown and the Swindon fans had a strong penalty claims a minute later when Sabin went down from a challenge from Michael Duff but there was clearly no contact between the two and referee Andy Hall waved away the protests.

Cheltenham kept battling and both sides had good shots on target, Brown had his shot fingertipped around the post then Guerney’s shot was saved down low by Shane Higgs, it appeared that no one could score. Guerney again went close when he headed over tha bar from a Beswetherick Corner with 15 minutes to go, it was at the same time that Bobby Gould sent on Damian Spencer to replace Marvin Brown up front.

It was now that Cheltenham really showed the confidence they were playing with when Shane Duff burst out of defence and attempted a shot from 35 yards which Griemink had to deflect wide of the post, Cheltenham came close again from the resulting corner with Grant McCann sending his shot into the side netting. A minute later Swindon missed the easiest chance of the match to pull a goal back when Alan Reeves missed a wide open goal from 6 yards out and sent the ball into the car park to a huge roar from the visiting fans.

There had been a highly charged atmosphere throughout the game and with 7 minutes to go it showed as Martin Devaney raced through on goal again and got pulled back by Jon Beswetherick on a clear goal scoring opportunity. As the referee blew for the free kick it was met by loud cries of ‘off off off’ from the visiting supporters appealing for a professional foul by Beswetherick, for a lot of Swindon fans, this was just too much as they saw the referee call him over. The red card was met by cheers from the away fans that would suggest Cheltenham had scored. As Beswetherick made his way down the tunnel to loud cries of ‘Cheerio cheerio cheerio’ it had gone too far for some Swindon fans, as a programme landed just behind me from an irate home fan who was sitting in the same stand.

It appeared that no matter what the Swindon fans did while attempting to wind the visitors up there was always a response to it, this time it was a favorite from the Cheltenham fans ‘Just because you’re losing’ and it seemed to have the desired effect as he was escorted out of the ground. In the following eight minutes there was a song that Cheltenham fans had not had the luxury of singing for a long time ‘Can we play you every week?’ This very nearly rounded off a perfect evening of singing. A fight broke out between certain members of both teams which got all three officials involved but the referee wasn’t forced to show anymore cards to anyone.

A long and horrible night for the home side was finished off perfectly for the visitors when Damian Spencer got the ball out wide on the left and cut inside to blast a perfect 30 yard shot into the top corner from his left foot. The night could not have ended better for Cheltenham with only 1 minute of the match left.

After hearing chants of ‘You are bottom of the league say you are bottom of the league’ from the Swindon fans it was the turn of the Cheltenham fans to sing about league positions with ‘We’re not bottom anymore’ which to everyone in the stand was voted as one of the best songs ever sung by Cheltenham fans. This was a truly magnificent night for every Cheltenham fan all over the place, doing the double over Swindon without even conceding a goal! And certainly for me it would mean that even if we did end up getting relegated we would have done the double over Swindon!