REPORT: Cheltenham Town 1-0 Hartlepool United
Cheltenham Town beat Hartlepool United 1-0 in front of this season's biggest crowd at the LCI Rail Stadium to confirm their Football League status with one game to go.Danny Wright put The Robins in front with a header early on and it stayed 1-0 at the break.
Hartlepool put plenty of pressure on in the second half but, despite a number of opportunities, couldn’t manage to find a goal.
The result sees Cheltenham rise up to 20th, seven points clear of the relegation zone.
Billy Waters had a shot blocked inside the box for Cheltenham and Nathan Thomas saw his speculative volley go well wide for Hartlepool as both sides tried to get on the front foot in the first five minutes.
It didn’t take long for The Robins to open the scoring though as, on 18 minutes, Harry Pell’s cross found Wright in plenty of space to head the ball into the back of the net.
Less than a minute later The Pools had a big chance to equalise when a ball to the edge of the box found Lewis Hawkins, but his effort was acrobatically pushed over the bar by Scott Brown.
With 25 minutes on the clock Cheltenham had a massive let off as Carl Winchester’s tame back pass was picked up by Padraig Amond, but his toe-poke when through on goal was saved by Brown.
The away side were pushing everything forward to try and get themselves back into the game but they were struggling to create any real chances, and Cheltenham went into half time with a one goal advantage.
After the break it was a similar story as Hartlepool dominated possession, though it was The Robins who went close to getting the next goal when Wright’s volley went just wide.
With 66 minutes gone The Pools went extremely close to scoring as it took a brilliant goal line clearance from Emmanuel Onariase to stop Amond’s whipped cross from creeping in at the back post.
Hartlepool went close again with 10 minutes to go when the ball fell to substitute Connor Simpson on the edge of the six yard box, but once again Brown was on hand so make a crucial save.
Despite five minutes of added time the away side couldn’t find an equaliser, and Cheltenham held on to claim a very important three points.
Cheltenham Town: S Brown, W Boyle, E Onariase, L Davis, C Winchester (J Cranston, 45), J Rowe, K Storer, H Pell, B Waters, D Wright (K Wootton, 80), D Holman (A Downes, 69).
Unused Subs: C Kitscha, D O’Shaughnessy, J Munns, J Dayton.
Hartlepool United: T Carson, C Magnay, N Featherstone (C), N Thomas (R Oates, 55), B Walker, P Amond, M Woods, L Alessandra, L Hawkins (C Simpson, 80), J Richards, S Harrison.
Unused Subs: J Fryer, M Bates, N Deverdics, L Rooney, D Rodney.
Attendance: 5,606 (704)