Cheltenham 1-1 U's: 6th April 2026

Surely not again

It’s been over 24 hours since the full-time whistle blew in Cheltenham. If you go back in time a few minutes before that, things were looking particularly peachy. United were seeing out an unspectacular 1-0 win away from home to keep hold of their automatic promotion place against a team languishing towards the bottom end of the division. A lack of fluent creative output but defensively sturdy; file it under ‘a Neil Harris away performance’.

Almost unthinkably, as the referee blew the final whistle, United had conspired to repeat history from a few days’ previously and concede another stoppage-time equaliser. This one was particularly costly: in terms of the league table, Notts winning knocked us back out of the automatics, but Swindon’s miracle resurrection of their own a few miles away in Wiltshire meant they levelled up their points tally with ours. This is a six-horse race, make no mistake about it.

It was also costly psychologically. Over the course of the season, every team will concede some late goals, that is part of what football is. But to concede so late against MK, Swindon and Cheltenham in recent weeks – two over the same weekend – is now a trend. And an extremely worrying one. It not only feels like a huge psychological disadvantage to ourselves, but a weapon opponents will try to use against us.

Put it this way, how will you feel if we’re 1-0 up against Notts County on Saturday with 10 minutes to play?

It’s an enormous task for Harris and his team to try and guard the players against that same way of thinking, but the Abbey will be riddled with anxiety should that situation come to pass.