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I Knew It Would Be Fine
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Nothing to worry about.
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By:
Eric Hitchmo
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06/09/2010
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More On Cheltenham Town
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"Well it is funny what a win can do for your football induced gloom. Pre-match was a very strange one for me as I arrived in the Pavilion unaccompanied. My regular accomplices to these matches were either otherwise engaged or by the vast majority had something else better to do with their time than watch Barnet. It wasn't an unfair position to take what with the start to the season we have experienced. There's only so much loyalty that can be shown and mine was certainly beginning to waver quite severely. I just plotted myself up at the bar and supped away to prepare myself for ninety more minutes of gloom. Or so I thought.
You will of course have read of my complete apathy towards the club at the moment, not helped one bit this week by the complete non-signing of the rumoured big name. It made the prospect of sitting at Underhill once again all the less appealing and I was not to be interrupted from the finishing of a pint by a silly thing like a 3 O'clock kick off. As I finished and got up to leave, TV told me that Cheltenham had already gone 1-0 up with a supposed belter. The temptation to sit straight back down was strong, but no, I will go and watch it. Who knows? It's that blind faith in the face of adversity rearing its foolish head once again. I asked the same question of myself once more, ""why am I doing this, what am I going to get out of it?"".
I strolled in at about 3:05, the ground looks far more full than I expected it to be. I thought it would be comfortably less than the low low 1,500 odd against Bury last week, alas not. Where have these people come from? Is it school holiday/Premiership football related? I'm not complaining, I'm all for it! Let's just hope they're not being put off by what's about to happen.
We lined up in a 4-4-2 and there was an immediate difference in our play. We looked like we had some serious attacking influence. Kabba was back in the side and although his inclusion was not the key to this new found fluidity, it allowed us to shape up and approach the game in a more positive manner. Barnet flowed forward in pursuit of a swift equaliser. Southam passed, Marshall ran, Walsh headed, it all looked so much more encouraging. I think I may well enjoy this. My enjoyment was spurred no end by a well crafted and well taken equalising goal. Smart build up play by Ricky Holmes slid Marshall in on the left who fired in a ball directly onto the head of Phil Walsh who powered in to the roof of the net. Oh glory! Barnet have scored! And it was a really good one at that. In fact, all three of our goals so far have been pretty good, haven't they?
We enjoyed an air of dominance in the first half, however it did seem to fizzle away as Cheltenham fought their way back into it. Jake Cole had to pull off a smart save from another well hit free kick. Even though we hadn't maintained the early dominance, this first half had been far more encouraging than any other half of football this season has had to offer. And more amazingly, I was in fact beginning to, horror of horrors, enjoy...myself...
The second half started in much the same vein. There were odd flashes of Barnet openings amongst a lot of cancelling out. Cheltenham appeared unable to break us down in a conventional fashion. Perhaps they just rely on getting fouled outside the box and getting their expert set-piece taker to bang a shot on target. Only problem was that he'd been taken off through injury in the first half. Where's our Plan B those little Robins asked? No-one seemed to know.
Holmes flashed a ball across the face that Walsh just couldn't reach, he had a chance of his own that he couldn't convert too. I still like Holmes. His interview this week suggested it's taking time to adapt to the rigours of League football, having joined from the Conference South. That is as understandable as it is evident at times, however the signs of talent are quite clearly there. He was involved in the second goal. His right foot corner was swung in and converted at pointblank range by Walsh who was completely unmarked. Everyone else appeared completely bemused as to how he'd found so much space and why there was a red and white shirt strewn across the turf as if he'd been hit by a bus. What actually happened was as the corner came in, Walsh was stood facing his marker and in pushing him away, completely floored him. He then just had to turn around and finish. Massively blatant foul I thought, but no-one else seemed to see it. 2-1. Cheers!
Now this was enjoyable. The crowd perked up a bit, Southam wound up the Cheltenham fans somehow which was pretty amusing to witness. As if his range of passing and running of the midfield on Saturday wasn't enough. It was a quality performance from Glen. And I haven't had to mention too much about the defence either, because they weren't really tested. When they were, they came up trumps. I was worried when Dennehy had to go off but Parkes slotted in well at left back which left Leach in at centre back with Uddin. They were pretty solid, I thought.
The game was wrapped up with ten minutes left when Kabba fed Marshall superbly and the little left wing livewire finished at the second attempt after his first shot was foiled by the keeper. He deserved his goal for a cracking afternoon's work, and we were to have our first win on the board. It could have been four from a header, I think it was by Leach, but for a world class save by the man between the sticks. Instinctive stuff, quite a brilliant piece of goalkeeping. And that was to be all. What started off as a depressing day in the Pavilion turned into a highly enjoyable one thanks to the 90 minutes entertainment on show. Encouraging stuff. This is more of what we want to see and I stayed to give the lads a well-earned round of applause along with much of the crowd. Happy days. Let's crack on now!
As an aside, good to see Albert and Yannick back at Underhill as they had no game this weekend due to this so called ""international football"". They were of course serenaded as they left, it was a nice touch to see that they still have a bit of feeling towards the club."
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