By Peegs
January 28 2003

Cheltenham have announced the news that ex Welsh manager Bobby Gould is to be the new manager until the end of the season. Bob Bloomer also steps up to first team coach. Gould most likely pipped Steve Parkin as the choice of manager, he has a contract until the end of the season with an option to stay on longer as "gaffer".

Bobby Gould's 2 best acheivements in football have to be winning the FA Cup with Wimbledon in 1988 after beating Liverpool 1-0 in the final at Wimbledon and being the manager who brought Stuart Pearce into professional football from Wealdstone, hopefully he can find Cheltenham a good young player or two from non-league!

He has previous managerial experience with Bristol Rovers, Coventry, Wimbledon, West Brom, Wales and most recently Cardiff City. He has been out of the game for 2 years but is said to be relishing the challenge to keep Cheltenham in Division 2.

His Career stats in Club management are:- Played 569, Won 208, Drawn 205 and Lost 156. Going by the current points sytem of 3 points for a win that works out at 1.46 points per game acheived over his career, if he acheives this average for the remainder of the season with Cheltenham we will accumilate 52 points which will probably just scrape us into the safety zone!

An interesting fact about Bobby is that he is the manager responsible for bringing Steve Cotterill into league football when he signed him for Wimbledon in 1988 from Burton Albion.

On a personal note after half a day of contemplating the appoitment of Gould I am very happy. He is a high profile name - who would have thought Cheltenham would be announcing an ex International manager as there gaffer? - who will be able to attract high profile names to the club.

From video footage of him on the touchline he seems to be a motivator and with Bob Bloomer by his side some passion may be back in the Cheltenham side.

Bobby Gould's first game in charge is this Saturdays home game versus Chesterfield? Make sure you get down to Whaddon Road and see Bobby get his reign as Cheltenham manager off to a win.