[Lord Snooty]

May 8:

We've only played five times on this date. One of them was at Cheltenham in 2004.

We were in the bottom tier, the 4th Division, which was called Division Three then and is now known as League Two. It was the season with Peter Jackson in for his second spell as manager after the club had been in administration. Fortunately back then, no points were deducted, so by the time this last game of the season came around, we were still in with a chance of promotion.

We were still in control of our own destiny, despite only taking one point from the last two games, we were still ahead of Torquay in 4th and so all we had to do was to better their result, away at Southend, to claim the 3rd spot and achieve automatic promotion.

Cheltenham, in your beautiful state of Gloss-ester-shyer, were comfortably in mid table with absolutely nothing to play for. Andy Booth, in his second spell at the club, had notched up 99 goals in all competitions. And 16 minutes into the game, he duly went and scored his 100th.

All was looking good, especially as they had a man sent off, striker Damien Spencer, in the 62nd minute. It was just a matter of seeing out the time, in front of a carnival atmosphere amongst the Town fans and the few thousand back at the McAlpine, watching on a big screen.

What could possibly go wrong?

Well Torquay were 2-1 up, down at Roots Hall, so we knew we had to win the game. With a quarter of an hour to go, Pawel Abbott received the ball out on the right wing in an attacking position just past the halfway line. For some unaccountable reason, he decided to dribble in the other direction, looking for a teammate to pass to. Nobody was showing and he just kept going, further and further into his own half. He was running out of room and suddenly his only option was to pass the ball back to Paul Rachubka in the Town goal.

The daft sod under hit it! It was intercepted by Shane Duff who coolly slotted it past the onrushing keeper.

As hard as the lads tried, they couldn't get that winner. A distraught Abbott was subbed and replaced by the returning hero, Iffy Onuora, who had just been released by Tranmere. The Big Iff couldn't magic up a goal though and so the game ended all square.

All eyes turned to Southend-on-Sea, where it was the Devon seasiders who were celebrating. Jacko had a big job on his hands now, picking the lads up after such a downer. He's got a week to do it. We play Lincoln City in the Play Offs next Saturday.