Celebrating 140 years of Cheltenham Town
We're very excited to announce an incredibly special episode of the Ornithology podcast, being released now to give us an opportunity to celebrate the pioneers of Association Football in Cheltenham, and to mark the first recorded game played by a Cheltenham team on 31st December 1884.
The 31st December 2024 will be the 140th anniversary of the game, and this episode relives that first match, giving recognition to the people who brought the game to the town and established Cheltenham Town Association Football Club.
New research from Robins Trust Co-Chair Jaimie Henderson links this match directly to the formation of CTFC, and opens an exciting new chapter in our understanding of our Club's origins.
The episode is available now for Robins Trust members - you can find details on how to access this and all previous episodes of the Ornithology podcast here: https://www.robinstrust.org/posts/robins-trust-podcast-launch-listen-to-ornithology-now/
(If you're not currently a member, you can join and get access to the episode from £10 per year - https://www.robinstrust.org/join/)
Raise a glass with the Robins Trust on New Years Eve in the memory of those who brought the game to our part of Gloucestershire and planted the seeds of our Club. We've uploaded some images to accompany the episode:
Above: Players from that first match (pictured eight years earlier while working as Pupil Teachers at Parish Church Boys School): Francis Stacey Wheeler (back row, left) and John Shrives (front row, left). Also pictured, Albert Close White (back row, second left) and headmaster Francis Frederick Wheeler (front row, centre).
Above: Albert Close White and Leonard Wheeler working at Parish Church Boys School in 1913.
Above: Pupils at Parish Church Boys School in 1873: Arthur Wheeler (top image, back row, second right), Albert Close White (top image, front row, second left), Francis S. Wheeler (top image, front row, fourth left), Clucas Gill (assumed) (top image, front row, third right), John Walter Stone (bottom image, front row, second left).
Above: The Parish Church Boys School in Devonshire Street (pictured in 1913).
Above - the location of Budding's Field, Gloucester, where Cheltenham's first match took place on 31st December 1884. A map from the 1880s, used under fair-use, archived by the British Library.
You can view the current location on OpenStreetMap here: https://www.openstreetmap.org/search?lat=51.866720&lon=-2.235471#map=17/51.866723/-2.235466i
(Scans of Parish Church Boys School staff, pupils and buildings taken from 'A Cheltenham Bi-Centenary 1713-1913', publisher details unknown, but another copy is available for viewing at the Gloucestershire Archive - https://catalogue.gloucestershire.gov.uk/records/SM78/5/2/2)