Occasionally, on our trips to away games, we get there early enough to look around the town. Which is nice, because it gives us a feel for the place. And what better time to start a series on places we've been to than now. Moving up to the Conference gives us lots of new places to visit, and a couple of old ones. And that's where we start (with grateful acknowledgement to Bill Bryson's Notes From A Small Island) in the...
The Give 'Em Beans! Guide to... CHELTENHAM
Ah, Cheltenham. The very word is redolent of a certain kind of genteel English upper classness. The Ladies' College, the Cheltenham Festival and the Gold Cup. It's where the top nobs send their daughters to school and where father and mother go every March for a day at the races. The Cheltenham Festival marks the beginning of the social season as the days lengthen and the temperature rises, following the long, cold, dark days of winter. Cheltenham is a genteel kind of place. It regards itself as a cut above its near neighbour, Gloucester. Indeed, it regards itself as a cut above most other places, except perhaps Oxford or Cambridge. Its full title is Cheltenham Spa and locals get very upset if you miss off the Spa bit, for it was the discovery of a mineral spring here in 1715 which led to the growth of the town. The Pittville Pump Room now stands on the site and visitors can sample the water from a paper cup. In keeping with the general air of snobbery about the place, you half expect an attendant to tap you on the shoulder and inform you that you are holding the cup incorrectly. 'No sir, it's like this, with your little finger ever so slightly extended.' The water is salty to the taste; not like mineral water at all. But it's meant to have many health giving properties. Perhaps the biggest would be not to drink it at all. The Pump Room is an impressive building. Inside is a spacious pillared hall, two storeys high with a balcony running round the upper level. Outside it has a green dome with a colonnade facade of golden stone. It is arguably second only to Brighton's Royal Pavilion in the league table of Regency architecture. Cheltenham is full of Regency buildings, having been built in the eighteenth century as a new town to exploit the waters of the spa. This attracted many people of education and means who came as much for Cheltenham's fashionable elegance and taste as for the waters vaunted medicinal properties. They still come, but they wouldn't be seen dead in the local M&S or Tesco's. The Pump Room overlooks a green lawn sloping down to ornamental lakes with a glimpse of the rough Cotswold escarpment to the east. It's a beautiful place on a warm spring day. A walk through the park leads past some very grand houses and to the birthplace of Cheltenham's most famous son, the composer, Gustav Holst, whose best known work is the Planets' Suite. Experiencing all this opulence makes you feel as if you might be on another planet. Beam me up, Scotty. This isn't the place for a Barrow lad. A football ground within walking distance of all this seems like a vulgar intrusion. A place like Cheltenham shouldn't have a football team. They should outlaw working class sports. They don't fit the image. Or at least if they have to have a football club, it should be full of gentleman amateurs, like the old Corinthians, playing the game not to win, but for the pleasure of taking part. Sadly, Cheltenham have a very good semi-professional football team, enjoying the most successful period in their entire history, and an excellent ground. This time next season there is every chance that they will be playing in Division Three. Although the town of Barrow will never have the refined air of Cheltenham, let's hope our football team can emulate theirs in a couple of years. Issue 039 - April 1999