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Every cloud has a silver lining - Cheltenham Town FC

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Submitted by WG on Mon, 04/06/2012 - 19:17

Cheltenham Town may have been defeated in the play off finals, but their financial position has improved considerably.   Not so long ago they were recording losses of £800k, were dicing with administration and looked as if they might return to the non-league.   Now, helped by a good FA Cup run and the revenue from the play-off final, they are set to record a profit for the third consecutive year.

One outstanding task is to complete the re-development of the stadium with the fourth side requiring attention.  A move to a site at the Racecourse on the outskirts of Cheltenham was mooted some time ago, but is now off the agenda.   Building a new stadium can incur substantial costs and re-building the existing one is a more sensible option for a club like Cheltenham.

Cheltenham does not strike one as a traditional football town, but the image of a spa on the edge of the Cotswolds can be misleading.   To be fair, it's not much bigger than Leamington Spa which can only support a club in the third tier of the non-league.

Indeed what strikes you as you drive into the town off the motorway is the headquarters of the electronic 'information gathering' agency GCHQ, about which my colleague, Richard Aldrich, has written a fascinating book with enough appeal to get featured at Heathrow.

Do code breakers and linguists specialising in obscure languages relax over coffee and lunch by discussing the latest news from the Robins?    That would be a secret.

Related Clubs: 
Cheltenham Town Association Football Club Ltd

Cheltenham's population

Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 05/06/2012 - 23:42.

Cheltenham's population (128,300) is about three times that of Leamington (39,940) and is closer to Ipswitch (128,300), Burnley (73,021), Blackpool  (140,000) all Championship clubs. It also has a 50 mile radius with no oher professional club.

What Cheltenham Town is lacking is time as an established football league club. It is now in it's fourteenth year in the league, of which four years have been spent in the third tier.

The silver lining for Cheltenham is that they remain in a division where they can be very competitive next season which will help to bolster already improved gate numbers. More importantly, the next generation of football fan in Cheltenham will no longer need to find a club like Leeds, Liverpool or Manchester United to attach themselves to, but will be able to look a lot closer to home.

Distance

Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 09/06/2012 - 08:50.

50 mile radius with no other pro club is wrong. Swindon is only 25 miles away.

Population

Submitted by WG on Thu, 07/06/2012 - 16:15.

Thanks for this.   The population figure given for Leamington is rather low: one has to take into account adjacent villages and also Warwick, which is a contiguous urban area, and where the local club (Racing Club Warwick) has hit hard times.   So I think the population gap might be smaller than it seems.   But what you say is encouraging for football in Cheltenham.