Cheltenham Town

Cheltenham Town Football Club is a football club belonging to the professional association of English football based in the town of Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England. The team has competed in League Two, which is equivalent to the fourth division, since the 2024-25 season. Nicknamed the "Robins", they have played at Whaddon Road stadium since 1932. The club has rivalries with Gloucester City FC and Forest Green Rovers FC.

Founded in 1887, the club spent much of its early years competing in local football championships, before beginning to compete in the Birmingham Combination from 1932 and then in the Southern League in 1935. For the next 50 years the club played in the Southern League, winning the Midland Division in the 1982-83 season and then taking the Premier Division title in the 1984-85 season. They were subsequently promoted to the Alliance Premier League in 1985, where they remained for seven seasons until they were relegated in 1992. They finished as runners-up in the Southern League Premier Division in four of the next five seasons, and were promoted to the Conference in 1997.

Under the management of Steve Cotterill, Cheltenham won the 1998 FA Trophy final and then secured promotion to the Football League for the first time after winning the Conference title in 1998-99. He left the club after the 2001-02 season, having guided them to the fifth round of the FA Cup and to promotion with victory in the 2002 Third Division play-off final. Immediately relegated after one season in the Second Division, they achieved another promotion when manager John Ward led them to victory in the 2006 Football League Two play-off final. Relegated after three seasons in the third division, the club's 16-year stay in the Football League ended with relegation to the Conference in 2015. However, manager Gary Johnson led Cheltenham to the Conference title with a tally of 101 points in 2015-16, making them the first club in 26 years to secure an immediate return to the Football League as Conference champions.

On 10 September 2018 the former Cheltenham player Michael Duff was named as the new manager. Under his command the club reached 16th place in the 2018-19 season and 4th place in the 2019-20 season, losing to Northampton Town in the play-offs 3-2 on aggregate.

In the 2020-21 season they won the League Two championship. Due to the pandemic, most matches took place behind closed doors. They reached the fourth round of the FA Cup for the first time since 2006, losing 3-1 to the eventual champions Manchester City. On 8 May 2021 the club won its first EFL title by beating Harrogate Town 4-1.

In the 2025-26 season, after a poor start to the season and a 3-0 defeat against Oldham Athletic, the head coach Michael Flynn was dismissed and shortly afterwards it was announced that his replacement would be Steve Coterill. Coterill won his first match 2-0 against Fleetwood.