Cheltenham Nearly Man

Tomorrow afternoon we take on Cheltenham Town in "The Cotswolds Derby" (as this fixture has been christened by the media in the past, despite not really being a derby and Oxford not being in the Cotswolds).

This is a fixture that although reasonably local, may not feel that much of a derby for most amongst the two sets of fans. For me though, it’s one that always pricks my interest – for I have a now long-distant association with the town of Cheltenham.

It could have been oh so different for me, tomorrow. But for a twist of fate I might have been amongst the away fans, you see. A very tenuous twist of fate perhaps, but nonetheless I’ll expand and waffle for a few paragraphs, as you have come to expect…


Whaddon Road with my Cotswold homelands behind.



Had I become a Cheltenham fan, I wouldn’t have seen the agony of relegation after relegation, as my side tumbled and stumbled from the top flight to non-league in the space of 18 years. Instead I would have seen my side promoted from Southern League obscurity in 1997, before finding a way into the Football League only five years later.

Instead of watching Oxford in our non-league low ebb, I’d have been excited by a Cheltenham team playing at their highest (to date) pinnacle – even reaching the dizzy heights of League One.

I wouldn’t have been amongst 33,000 ecstatic Yellows at Wembley last May, but I’d have been at the Millennium Stadium in May 2006, watching Cheltenham reach that vertigous League One height just a few weeks after a team in yellow down the road that I didn’t really give a monkey’s about had dropped out of the football league.

The reason this might have happened is that I grew up in the Cotswolds town of Moreton-in-Marsh, a mere 22 miles from Whaddon Road. In those early-teen years before I discovered the joys of the London Road, the young FMO was a regular visitor to Cheltenham, the nearest decent-sized town to my home.



Badlands Cheltenham:  Music on Sale Here.


In the summer I would regularly catch the Pulham’s bus to Cheltenham and go shopping in Badlands Record shop for the latest grunge & death metal releases, before hanging out in the park opposite Whaddon Road, chatting about Kurt Cobain with similarly disaffected youths. It seemed such an adventure for a 14 year old boy to be off gallivanting in another town and I have very fond memories of lazy Saturday afternoons spent wandering around Cheltenham’s town centre.


Regent Arcade: Cheltenham: Exciting


I even went on my first ever proper date in Cheltenham, where I treated Becky Cother to a coke float in PizzaLand, before a Graham Gooch book-signing event in the Regent shopping arcade caught my eye. I later wondered if this particular Cheltenham adventure had some part in why that particular relationship didn’t work out.

Back then, despite liking football, the thought of spending an afternoon watching non-league dross was far from being on my ‘to do’ list. I’d never even noticed that the club existed to be honest – so ignorant were my young, innocent eyes to anything other than the Football League and the fledgling Premiership.

So despite my very fond attachment to the town of Cheltenham, it was east and to the city of Oxford that I eventually drifted – for some League football, no less. I was taken to The Manor Ground by a friend’s father one eventful afternoon in Jan 1994 and I haven’t looked back since - I was hooked.

Rarely did I ever even venture to Cheltenham again in fact, until our paths crossed on the football pitch many years later of course. For every Saturday from then was pretty much spent heading up the Manor Ground to watch Oxford with a couple of school friends.

How different things might have been had I had a friend who’s Dad watched Cheltenham, rather than Oxford, perhaps? Or if I’d been just a few years younger, and had caught the buzz around the town during Cheltenham’s rise to the Football League? If it’d been 2006 rather than 1996 when I was gallivanting around Cheltenham, Oxford would have been the non-league club and Cheltenham the nearest ‘decent’ team.

I would almost certainly have gone along to Whaddon Road were that the case. Perhaps it wouldn’t have instilled the same excitement in me that the London Road did all those years ago, but things would certainly have been different and I doubt I’d have ever found my way to Oxford subsequently.

These might be rather tenuous (and, well, frankly a little farcical) ‘what ifs’ – but nonetheless the scenario did make me think how different my life might have been had I taken the A429 rather than the good old A44.

My whole centre of gravity would have shifted westwards – I never would have lived in Oxford, nor gone to university here, and probably today I’d be living in Bristol rather than London. I’d never have met my wife, as I’d have no reason to be in her home-town of Reading, where I lived for a time in order to easily get back to Oxford for games. I’d probably have pickled my liver on scrumpy cider, too.

I’m sure there are some lovely people that I’d have got to know supporting Cheltenham, but I’d never have come to know all the brilliant people I know through supporting Oxford over all these years, either.

Worst of all though, I’d have been happily chanting ‘Come on you Robins’ tomorrow afternoon whilst wearing a red scarf around my neck. The whole thing makes me shudder.
Thank heavens for fate, and Up those Yellows!