The Official Cheltenham Town Match Thread (Sponsored by Gillingham and the month of October “for all your Historical Halloween Horror needs”)

Two defeats in a row in the league, the first somewhat unlucky, the second fairly grim viewing despite two consolation goals, have seen us drop to fourth spot in the formative league table as we welcome 22nd-placed Cheltenham Town to Priestfield tomorrow.

Tuesday night saw another defeat in the Tinpot Trophy as our youngsters eventually surrendered a slender one-goal lead to lose 2-1 at Col Ewe late on. Of more concern than that result was Seb Palmer-Houlden’s withdrawal before kick-off and a likely spell on the sidelines having felt a twinge in his knee. As one of the few bright spots in opening his account for the club at Milton Keynes last Saturday his absence will be felt, especially with Josh Andrews missing suspended having accumulated five yellow cards for being persistently manhandled in every match to date.

n addition to Seb and Josh being missing, the attacking prowess of Jonny Smith, Bradley Dack and Garath McCleary will again be lacking, alongside the midfield presence of Armani Little, while Masterson and Euan Williams are still some way off. Our forward line options, that appeared reasonably bounteous after deadline day, are now reduced to Nevitt who, bless him, tries his best but looks as likely to score as insert juvenile analogy here, Wyllie who’s barely had a look in since scoring against Chesterfield and Sam Vokes who has yet to play more than 45 minutes in a game since his return from injury. Factor in the attacking midfielders we’re missing and the picture looks fairly bleak from a goalscoring perspective.

On the subject of bleak, our opponents tomorrow had a horror-show start to the season with five successive defeats to open the campaign, with only a single goal scored and 11 conceded. Four points from their next two games preceded another run of heavy defeats, the last being a 7-1 battering at Grimsby that saw ex-Gill Mickey Flynn relieved of his job within hours of the final whistle. In to replace him is Steve Cotterill, a legend amongst Robins fans for his previous spell with the club over 20 years ago that saw the Gloucestershire side promoted to the Football League for the first time in their history under his stewardship. A new (old?) manager bounce was definitely in evidence last time out, as, having shipped 12 goals in their previous three games, Cheltenham kept a clean sheet in a 2-0 home win over mid-table Fleetwood to give Cotterill the perfect start.

The head to head is heavily in Gills’ favour, 14 wins to five with 10 draws, although it is biased in favour of Gills wins from the Southern League era. Cheltenham must have rued their early visits to Kent, losing on all five trips to Priestfield with an aggregate score of 23-5 since the first meeting of the sides that ended with a 6-1 win for Gills back in 1939. After a gap of 50 years, the fixture was resurrected, Gills battling through an FA Cup First Round tie after a replay on our way to the Quarter Finals in that momentous 1999/2000 season. Since that game, the record between the sides at Priestfield is level at two wins apiece with five draws, with the Robins unbeaten in their last five visits.

For the highlights it’s back to the 2006/07 League One season and a 2-1 win courtesy of goals from Matt Jarvis (ably assisted by one Mickey Flynn) and Mark Bentley.

The attendance will likely be a bit down tomorrow as the recent defeats bite into ticket sales; over 1700 seats are available for the home ends including 122 in the Rainham End, which is usually close to being sold out in advance of previous home games. The early season enthusiasm seems to have petered away somewhat in a horrible echo of the last two seasons. Given a full complement of players and GA in the dugout, there would be absolutely nothing to fear, but there’s a nagging doubt stemming from previous experience that’s hard to expunge, especially having seen us continuing to make life hard for ourselves by conceding early goals in each of the last three league games. Bring back one-Nillingham tomorrow and all will be forgiven.

Enjoy the game if you’re going, and…

COYG!!!