Congratulations to Matt Pegg who came out on top in our recent blog competition.
We are pleased to announce that Cheltenham Town fan Matt Pegg is our new official blog writer here on www.ctfc.com.A competition was announced to find an avid Cheltenham Town supporter who wanted to become a columnist here on the official website talking about all the latest news from a fan's perspective.
Fans were asked to submit a 500 word review of the 2012-13 season and over 30 entries were submitted with a superb quality of writing but we are delighted to announce that Matt Pegg was our eventual winner.
"It has to be said that the quality of the entrant's reviews were really strong," said Media & Communications officer James Brown.
"The whole purpose of setting up the blog is to engage with the supporters a bit more through the website as well as providing something that fans can really look forward to reading over a coffee every week or fortnight. We received a really wide range of entries and it was pretty difficult to choose a winner in the end because the quality surpassed what I expected.
"Matt's review stood out for me because of his writing style and I really look forward to his blogs being a part of ctfc.com across the new season."
Matt will now be writing blogs for the official website across the entire season and digesting all the news that comes out of the Abbey Business Stadium on a weekly basis. The blogs will be posted in the news section of the website but you can also find them on a dedicated 'Official Blog' section which can be found under the News tab. You can also follow Matt on Twitter by searching his username (@MattPegg1).
Matt's winning 2012-13 season review:
27th May 2012 and as I wiped the sweat from my brow, the blistering London heat blaring down on the Wembley pitch, I pondered on what may have been.
With a jubilant Crewe creating a cacophony of noise from the other side of the stadium, we Cheltenham fans could only look on in agony, a 2-0 defeat condemning the side to another season in League 2.
As I marched out of the stadium, exhausted by the temperature and the result, a consoling arm swooped around my shoulders from another Robins fan; ‘Maybe next year’, he muttered optimistically. Oh, how wrong he was…
The 2013/2013 began with much positivity for Cheltenham; new faces arriving, a team who deserved success and a manager who was taking the club in the right direction. The Robins were ready to launch a full scale attack on League Two.Â
The season started relatively brightly, with wins over Oxford, Bristol Rovers and Exeter the highlights of the first couple of months. While the team didn’t have the fluidity of their play-off defeated predecessors, victories were piling up significantly and the ‘P’ word was fluttering around the town with genuine assurance….cue the dip in form.
Despite an unforgettable tie with Everton in the FA Cup, January failed to produce a single win for the Robins. Echoes of the previous year’s Cup exploits at Spurs and the following disastrous form were prevalent. Here we go again I thought to myself. However, the good ol’ Cheltenham home form came into fruition and vital wins at the ABS against Chesterfield, Gillingham and Rotherham were massive lifts for the entire club. We were edging closer and closer to the promised land, with automatic promotion a genuine possibility. However, it wouldn’t be the Cheltenham way to give the fans an easy ride and, unfortunately, ‘last game of the season’ heart palpitations were once again felt in abundance. Sat in 4th place heading into the final game against Bradford, the mathematics were easy; a Rotherham win meant settling for another arduous play-off campaign, a Rotherham loss meant that 3 points guaranteed automatic promotion. We all know how it went.
Groundhog Day; another play-off semi-final, this time against an impressive Northampton side. A clean sweep of the Cobblers in the regular season filled everyone with optimism as Russ Penn lead his team out at Sixfields for the first leg. A less than impressive 90 minutes later and we had given ourselves the uphill task of having to win the second game.
‘A 1-0 loss was not the worst that could’ve happened’, I pondered. ‘We have been a formidable test for the league’s best at the ABS, so we could give these Northampton lot a right good seeing too’.
My crystal ball now firmly in the bin, this prediction also failed to materialise and a wonder goal from the Cobblers and a missed penalty from Marlon Pack meant that we had finished one stop short of last season’s heartbreak. What made the whole experience even worse is that we didn’t deserve to win the tie. Northampton were the better team; maybe concerns of another end-of-season disappointment got the better of our boys.
Whilst I am rather healthier financially thanks to a cancelled Wembley trip, it is still a bitter pill to swallow. I need that consoling arm again.
Maybe next year…