Marked for Anthony Scott
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad23 Oct 2028
Anthony Scott damages knee ligaments — 19 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 19 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Match21 Oct 2028
Harrogate Town will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Cheltenham Town were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Player ratings23 Oct 2028
Two goals and a mark of 8.35 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings23 Oct 2028
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.11 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Match21 Oct 2028
8 matches without a win, and then this, against Harrogate Town. Relief is a strange noise in a football ground and it was the only noise at the end.
Squad23 Oct 2028
Josh Edwards and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad23 Oct 2028
Words at Cheltenham Town training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andreas Weimann is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The terraces23 Oct 2028
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Squad23 Oct 2028
10 new faces, and Cheltenham Town are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad16 Oct 2028
26 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Cheltenham Town lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The dugout16 Oct 2028
This is not rotation. Andreas Weimann has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Cheltenham Town is pretending otherwise.
Squad16 Oct 2028
Words at Cheltenham Town training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andreas Weimann is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Squad16 Oct 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cheltenham Town this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Oct 2028
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Cheltenham Town will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
The dugout16 Oct 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Tshiamo Chiloane, and the manager let it.
Looking ahead16 Oct 2028
Harrogate Town next, and one man in the Cheltenham Town dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The dugout16 Oct 2028
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Samuel Hincapié trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market16 Oct 2028
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad9 Oct 2028
33 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Cheltenham Town lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Match7 Oct 2028
8 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Market9 Oct 2028
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Edoardo Bernardi will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Cheltenham Town the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Match7 Oct 2028
6 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Cheltenham Town can tell you which week it ends in.
Squad9 Oct 2028
Words at Cheltenham Town training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Manuel Pinotti is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Squad9 Oct 2028
Tomás Pizarro was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The dugout9 Oct 2028
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Player ratings9 Oct 2028
Defensive actions: 16. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Player ratings9 Oct 2028
Marked 7.54 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Cheltenham Town had the best player on the pitch.