Seasons Beatings
- Barra Punx
- Dec 21, 2025
- 4 min read
Cheltenham (H) - EFL League 2 - 19th December 2025
Provincial Public Houses blaze,
Corporation tramcars clang,
On lighted tenements I gaze,
Where paper decorations hang,
And bunting in the red Town Hall
Says ‘Merry Christmas to you all’.
John Betjeman
It’s the most wonderful time of the year in the alternative Christmas calendar: Mad Friday, where alcohol-fuelled violence is euphemised and football isn’t traditionally played. But here I am, sober as a nerd, trudging down to Holker Street for our Christmas Eve X6 fixture versus Cheltenham. Eyes baggy but unblackened. There’s optimism in the air after last week’s comeback at Gillingham, and the home crowd are in fine voice from kick-off. Just over 2,000 souls have forgone the traditional pub revelry to attend this relegation battle, with maybe one or two mulled wines consumed on the way. I hope we’ve all got plenty of alcohol and new underwear on our Christmas lists; the second half of the season may require lashings of both. The club have already stuffed their want list up the boiler flue: new striker, a full-back and a new manager. Neil McDonald is in audition mode, hoping to secure the job on a permanent basis. Will he get the luck Andy Whing didn’t? He’s got a good set of fixtures to play with: only Salford are in the top half out of the next five, which could see him get the job by default. The betting list is far from inspiring; let’s see what tonight brings.
It’s Cheltenham who come out of the blocks first as Isaac Hutchinson slips Adelakun in on goal, but he’s offside and misses the target.
What comes next is 40 minutes of Barrow dominance. Whitfield tests Day with a shot from the edge of the area after the first of seven corners won in quick succession. Raglan and McCann both have good opportunities to notch but fail to hit the target. Hemmings is next up on 17 minutes, heading over from close range following a good attacking move. Josh Gordon, fresh from his Soccerline performance, has a crack on 28 but Day gets his body behind it. Another shot from Gordon is saved by Day shortly after, keeping things level. This isn’t a radically different performance from a Whing-era outing, and in keeping with that, after playing well and not finding the net, we find ourselves behind on 39 minutes. Jordan Thomas beats Shipley easily, skips past McCann in the area and chips a cross to Adelakun who’s lost his man at the back post and scores from zero yards. Is it a loss of concentration? Determination? Communication? Formation? Or are we just shite? It’s the sort of simple goal that we don’t seem capable of scoring but concede on a regular basis. We go into half-time a familiar and frustrating one goal down. We’ve played all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order.
There’s a delay to the second half as Cheltenham finish off their Secret Santa in the changing room, taking an eternity to return to the pitch. Maybe the excitement of unwrapping a Lynx Africa gift set has gone to their heads, as we almost immediately draw level: Ben Whitfield taps in from close range at the far post from Barkhuizen’s cross. See, it’s that easy. And that should be the spark to kick on and win the game, right?
Not quite. It’s Cheltenham who are looking more likely. A fierce shot from outside the box sees Raglan poleaxed, blocking with his coupon and dislodging his Alice band. A quick sniff of rum butter administered by the physio and he’s back on his pins.
Stanway earns his pigs in blankets on the hour, saving well from Luke Young’s powerful strike from outside the box. Seventy minutes and Cheltenham come close again, Jake Bickerstaff bothering the crossbar. McDonald rings the changes on 75 minutes: Newby and Mahoney on for a knackered Whitfield and Earing. Seventy-five minutes and here’s the winner, Mahoney crosses a perfect ball for Josh Gordon who’s lost his man and directs his header into the bottom corner! Yes!! But no, he’s headed wide. And this is a microcosm of our season so far. The perfect opportunity to go and win a game and we’ve fluffed our lines. This is what gets you in a relegation fight; you can’t blame the manager, be it Whing or McDonald, if we aren’t going to take our big chances.
So it’s with an air of inevitability on 84 minutes when Ethon Archer rifles a first-time finish across goal past a hapless Stanway who is Home Alone with our defence wondering the earth with Jacob Marley.
The previously boisterous home supporters are reduced to one bloke who sounds like he's singing the opening bars to the Coronation Street theme tune, fair play to him. Whilst the 70 or so Cheltenham fans are in full voice, sounding like a chorus of football YouTubers in a motorway underpass as the songs echo around the gazebo.
I fully expected us to get three points from this game, have a bit of optimism over the Christmas period, and our performance deserved at least a point. But we’ve found ourselves losing a game we should have won, again. And that’s concerning. We all know where the problems lie; let’s hope Santa can deliver on that list. Otherwise it’s going to be a long and bleak winter.
Merry Fucking Christmas
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