Caledonia Dreaming or Ian38018 Sporting Travels: Completely-Suzuki Stadium

Sunday 16 October 2022

Completely-Suzuki Stadium

Cheltenham Town 1-2 Cardiff City

16th July 2022

I am always surprised at the numbers of folks who turn up (not just turn up, but pay to turn up), for friendly matches. Particularly the pre-season jobs which are, let's be honest here, just glorified training sessions.

Almost 1,800 turned out at Whaddon Road this afternoon - my local team Dunfermline Athletic drew in less than that for their opening competitive fixture of the season!

And what the attendees (including 650 from the Principality) witnessed this afternoon for their hard-earned, was Cheltenham Town enjoy a very impressive first-half - scoring just on the break - before running out of steam a bit, and (slightly controversially, in my eyes) losing 2-1.

I was actually more than a little taken by Cheltenham Town during the first 45 minutes. They may not have created a hellish lot, but there was some neat interplay in midfield, and their defence barely allowed their Championship opponents a sniff of goal. Pretty much Cardiff's only first-half opportunity of note came around the 20th minute mark, when central defender Mark McGuiness (who has subsequently been punted out on loan to Sheffield Wednesday, I note) headed a corner over the top.

Cheltenham really should have already opened the scoring just prior to that, but Dan Nlundulu's poor touch spoilt a fine counterattack. George Lloyd then fizzed a left-footer just over the Cardiff crossbar. The home side's opener when it did come arrived just seconds before the break, courtesy of some smart thinking by the aforementioned Lloyd; he taking advantage of a couple of Cardiff defenders moaning at the ref, to slip a quick free-kick to Liam SERCOMBE who did the needful.

The second period however, was pretty much one-way traffic in the direction of the Cheltenham goal, particularly so after the visitors had substituted their whole eleven around the hour mark! This arresting incident occurred just after Mark HARRIS had equalised for Cardiff City from the penalty spot.

The Cardiff pressure finally paid off just a few minutes from time when Max WATTERS bashed in a loose ball following a cross by team-mate Joel Bagan. Watters did at least have the good grace to look embarrassed that his blatant push on home defender Tom Bradbury beforehand was inexplicably missed by the officials.