“We were in trouble. I asked for a meeting with the gaffer and said ‘this needs to work, for the team but also for my own sake. This just has to work’.”
It is four games into Charlie Raglan’s loan spell at Cheltenham Town and they have just been thrashed 3-0 at Colchester United in League Two, February 9, 2019.
“That game stands out as a turning point for me and probably the team,” Raglan says. “I’d never played in a back three before and we were poor, getting pulled around and we couldn’t get out.
“We were pinned as a five all the time and we hadn’t yet developed into what the manager wanted.”
The defender had arrived during the January window from Oxford United, having been spotted by Michael Duff during a scouting trip to watch striker Sam Smith, who was on loan from Reading, against Tottenham Hotspur Under-21s, in which Raglan scored.
His final appearance for Oxford was at Whaddon Road in a Papa John’s Trophy second round tie, which the U’s won 4-1 on penalties after a 1-1 draw.
Two days later he was at Cheltenham’s training ground preparing for a trip to Carlisle United, when Billy Waters took team bonding to another level.
“Billy is a good friend of mine now and I knew a bit about him through mutual friends who’d been at Crewe, but I’d only just met him when we roomed together on that trip,” Raglan recalls.
“We were in single beds and in the middle of the night he got up to use the toilet, got back into my bed and curled up. The next minute he’s putting his arm over me. I nudged him and asked what he was doing and he just calmly climbed back into his own bed and had probably forgotten all about it by the morning.”
Waters had returned to Cheltenham on loan just before Raglan joined, with Cam Pring, Jordan Tillson and Rakish Bingham also recruited during Duff’s first transfer window as boss.
“I was impressed when I came in,” Raglan says. “Michael Duff had an aura and a calmness about him. Everyone was in the gym, which I noticed straight away and I was given a plan on day one by Josh Harris the sports scientist.
“Duff had come in and upped the ante was the impression I got when I joined and he’s carried on doing that ever since. Standards were the main thing for him, for example dirty boots in training were not tolerated, time-keeping and detail in the warm-up – things like that.
“He showed us a video of Cristiano Ronaldo warming up and how detailed it was. All of that was impressive for me and I thought ‘he’s the real deal’ but we were in the mire and needed to pick up points quickly.”
Raglan’s first goal for the club was in the vital 3-2 home win over fellow strugglers Macclesfield Town, when they had to hit back from 2-0 down at half-time.
He played all 19 games as the recently adopted 3-5-2 formation began to flourish, generating positive results and a gradual climb away from relegation trouble to finish 16th.
“The manager was very good with video analysis and so detailed with coaching points you could work on and improve,” the 30-year-old says. “When we faced a front three, with wingers staying wide and full-backs joining in, we were overloaded in wide areas and the opposition had all the space.
“The midfield becomes stretched because they are doing all the work of trying to get across the pitch and the strikers have to drop in and you end up not being about to get out. There are ways of being defensively strong and compact, but that wasn’t it.
“We worked on our wing-backs sprinting to close people down, with a ‘rolling back four’ and midfielders pressing at times. The manager’s favourite line was ‘getting up the pitch’ and it started to work.
“We were just about getting over the line and in the end we broke away and it was comfortable. We had a table up around the training ground from January onwards and we were not far off play-off form.”
With two games left to play, Raglan was asked if he wanted to sign permanently. “Things fell into place and I loved it at Cheltenham,” he says. “If it was going to carry on the way it was going, I wanted to be part of it. I got on well with everyone and you could see we were progressing, so it was an easy decision.”
He had been commuting from Bicester and was part of a short-lived car school with Craig Alcock before he moved into a flat near Pittville Park with his partner Emma ahead of his first full season with the Robins. He quickly felt at home off the pitch.
“It’s a wonderful place to be able to call home and I enjoyed walking into town via three or four coffees and watching the world go by,” he says. “I could write a book on the coffee shops of Cheltenham in fact.
“Reg (Luke Varney) and Toze weren’t living in Cheltenham, but they’d stay over the night before games so we’d spend Friday afternoons together, along with the likes of Boyley and Scotty Flinders, all becoming really close and I think that had a big impact on what we did on the pitch.”
Raglan scored in a 4-1 win over Scunthorpe United in the opening home game, when Jake Eastwood was the opposing goalkeeper. He took great pleasure in reminding him of this when the pair were working together on their Uefa B coaching course earlier this month.
“I remember aiming for the top 10 being discussed that summer and being within touching distance of the play-offs,” Raglan says. “We had meetings and set out a bit of a road map and we needed to sort out our away form.
“Crawley away was another low point in that respect, losing 1-0 in the 90th minute and after that we sort of said ‘enough’s enough’. We played really well at Salford City, winning 2-0 and it started to turn.”
For much of the 2019/20 campaign, Raglan played on the right of skipper Ben Tozer, with Will Boyle on the left and Sean Long and Chris Hussey the wing-backs.
“The gaffer worked on us relentlessly and he always told us he saw the game through our eyes because it was where he played,” Raglan says.
“He’d show us a clip, stop it to show how brilliant something was and we’d often have missed it ourselves. He spoke to me a lot about having my shoulders turned and there were so many little details.
“I am hundreds of times better as a defender thanks to him and I think the likes of Boyley, Longy and Toze would say exactly the same.
“You can see him doing the same sort of thing at Barnsley now. They have some real talent obviously, but the make-up of the team and their behaviours are a carbon copy of what we had.”
Duff’s Cheltenham had won five in a row, followed by a 0-0 draw with Port Vale when Covid halted the season on March 7, 2020 During that game, referee Scott Duncan pointed to the penalty spot in the 42nd minute after a challenge from ex-Vale defender Raglan on Mitch Clark. But after consulting with his assistant, he overturned the decision.
Cheltenham were in fine form and four points off the automatic promotion places with a game in hand, but the season was cut short and they faced Northampton Town in the play-offs. It was nearly three months between games and after reporting back for a mini pre-season in June, they had two weeks to prepare for their two-legged semi-final.
“I think a lot of the lads picked up Covid from the races just before we were meant to be playing at Cambridge on the Saturday,” Raglan recalls. “Paul Godfrey (secretary) came out onto the training pitch on the Friday and told us the bad news that the game was postponed and everyone had nine days off.
“I remember going running every day to make sure I was ready, but looking back I was struggling and probably had Covid myself. It was then a long wait and I could tell you the exact tree I ran to and from in Pittville Park, just doing what I could to stay as fit as possible.”
The first play-off game at Sixfields fell on Raglan’s soon to be wife Emma’s birthday: June 18. He scored the opening goal in the 26th minute after Owen Evans’ early penalty save.
Conor Thomas added the second four minutes from the end to complete an impressive night’s work, but it all went wrong in the second leg as the Cobblers hit back to win 3-2 on aggregate.
“In the first game we did a job on them and it was what we’d done all season, but they turned up in the second leg with the bit between their teeth and went after us and we didn’t handle it well,” Raglan admits.
“(Alan) McCormack was ruthless, running the game with his feet and his mouth. You could hear every word without a crowd there and we couldn’t get our heads around it.
“You could feel after five minutes that it was all in their favour and we were like rabbits in headlights. We hadn’t seen that side of us, but it happened in the biggest moment of the season, so it was hard to take. I think I had a few too many beers that night to try and switch off.”
Many players left the ground that night and did not return, with Covid restrictions making it feel like a particularly abrupt and anti-climactic finale to a season of progress.
“The focus turned to next season and the gaffer phoned a lot of the lads to talk about using the experience to fuel the fire,” Raglan says. “He put on a presentation in pre-season with examples of sportspeople or teams suffering catastrophic defeats, or not delivering when they were expected to, but how they came back even stronger, from Rory McIlroy to Leeds United. He told us we could come again and that we would. We kept the core of the players and everyone was on the same page.”
The only time Raglan was ever close to coming to blows with a colleague was Tozer on the last day of the 2020/21 season. Cheltenham were 4-1 up and about to clinch the club’s first title as an EFL club, but the captain was still barking orders and demanding more.
“Toze was constantly at me, pushing and pushing and I felt he could have done it in a nicer way so I wasn’t happy with him,” Raglan says. “We are good friends, but that’s the closest I ever came to having a fight with a teammate. His leadership tied in with everything we were about.
“Longy has taken to the captaincy really well because he also has that steeliness to demand constantly from others and himself and do whatever is necessary.”
Cheltenham kept 21 clean sheets in 46 games, with Raglan, Tozer and Boyle forming a formidable unit in front of goalkeeper Josh Griffiths, with Hussey and Matty Blair outside them. Duff ensured the team remained highly motivated throughout, despite playing in front of empty stadiums.
“He always said if you train as you play, on a match day you just cross the white line and get to work,” Raglan says. “It was all driven by him and we had people like Reg Varney at 36 or 37 steaming into tackles and sprinting around, never having a day off and doing gym sessions before and after training.
“Blairy and Andy Williams were the same and it was the people and the characters we had that played a huge part in why we were successful. I count myself fortunate to have been in such a great dressing room and it all started from Michael Duff, who told us there would only be a handful of people we keep in touch with from our football careers and it’d be the ones where you have had success. That dressing room was untouchable.”
As well as an historic league campaign, Manchester-born and boyhood United fan Raglan also had the chance to face Pep Guardiola’s City in the fourth round of the FA Cup. “That game obviously stands out,” he says. “I was up against Ferran Torres, who I remember chatting to in Spanish during the game, which took him aback a bit.
“Phil Foden was on the left for them, but he wanted to come inside a lot and I also remember lamping Gabriel Jesus. When (Ilkay) Gundogan came on, he was playing a different sport; he was unbelievable.”
City scored three late goals to win 3-1 after Alfie May’s opener for Cheltenham, but Duff warned the players they had no excuses not to win the league after their performance against some of the world’s best.
“He told us proper teams like City aren’t happy with one good game or result – they do it for years and years. We could not come off the boil and we had to beat Oldham three days later in an empty stadium, which we did.”
The following month, Cheltenham visited title rivals Cambridge United, but Raglan was ruled out on the morning of the game due to a freak injury.
“I bent down to put my sock on and my back locked up, I couldn’t move,” he says. “I rang Gav (Crowe, head of medical) and got to the ground and he got me on a treatment table, with the team coach waiting outside, but he has since told me as soon as he saw me getting out of the car he knew there was no way I could play.
“I wouldn’t normally do it, but I phoned the gaffer because it was terrible timing. He knew how gutted I was, but nothing could be done. Probably because we won the game, he was able to have a bit of fun with it and stitch me up by telling everyone after the game how I got injured!”
Raglan was at the centre of the celebrations after a 1-1 home draw with Carlisle United secured automatic promotion, dancing to Oasis’ Morning Glory on the pitch before the players raced out into the car park for an impromptu, socially distanced celebration with a gathering of jubilant supporters.
“It was a brilliant night of raw emotion really,” he says. “Seeing all the fans at the gate and all the lads were in the boardroom celebrating in our kit and shin pads until the early hours of the morning.
“The manager was happy for us to stay and enjoy the moment and I remember Scotty Flinders enjoying himself and having to stagger back to Boyley’s house with an emergency stop off in a bush somewhere in between!
“The manager was then right on us to make sure we won the title. He was brutal at times, but he taught me a lot in that respect too. It was special getting the trophy and medals after Harrogate and there was a real sense of achievement, having gone through what we had the year before.”
Raglan was back at League One level, where he had already appeared for Chesterfield and Oxford, but the 2021/22 campaign was particularly challenging both on and off the pitch.
He fell awkwardly in training just before the EFL Cup trip to Gillingham and after a period of rest to allow a ligament to heal, it became evident that surgery to repair his meniscus was necessary. He went under the knife a week before his twin daughters Sophia and Olivia were born on November 12 – five weeks premature.
“We were told early in the pregnancy that they had twin-twin transfusion syndrome, where one baby gets more nutrients than the other, which is dangerous,” Raglan says. “We played Coventry City in pre-season and the day before we’d been in Bristol and my partner had undergone surgery to save the babies 19 weeks in. I watched them perform this surgery on unborn babies, which was incredible. It was a stressful time, but the manager and the club were brilliant.”
There were times when Raglan would run straight from the training pitch in his boots and drive straight to hospital for scans and other appointments.
“Around the birth was a tough time,” he says. “Sophia had problems with her breathing and her lungs would stick, so she was in intensive care unit at Gloucestershire Royal for a week. I was sleeping at the hospital during a vital period in my own recovery from knee surgery.”
Raglan becomes noticeably emotional as he recounts the level of support given to him, from Crowe and club doctor Sophie Risebero in particular.
“I remember coming in one day and my session didn’t even start as I couldn’t get out of the physio room,” he says. “I was just crying on Gav’s shoulder. I went to Sophie’s house to talk about my knee and I was crying in her arms too. My girlfriend was dealing with it 24/7 in hospital and I was having to come and go.”
Raglan returned to action against Lincoln City at home – around a month after the babies were born and he believes getting back to work helped reduce his stress levels.
“I am not the first footballer to have kids so I am not getting the violin out, but the change was hard and getting used to it was difficult,” he says. “It’s the best thing that’s happened to me. They are 18 months old now and lovely little girls – I couldn’t love them more.
“But I’d been stressed and I needed that release, so I wanted to play. It gave me something to focus on as well, rather than being drained as a new parent to babies who had been born five weeks premature. I wanted to play more than I did, but looking back the manager was probably looking after me. The whole season is a bit of a blur with everything that was going on.”
The 2-1 home win over Sunderland stands out: “Those sort of nights were special and it felt like we had an opportunity to make history in almost every game. I felt great, aggressive, strong and fit and mentally in the games. I had missed playing.”
Raglan, known for his bravery and total commitment to the cause, had featured in 40 league games during the previous season’s title success, but that was reduced to 28 the following year. “I had a small injury towards the end of the title season and was advised to rest and recover in the summer, but it didn’t work out how I wanted it to because I wasn’t up to speed when I came back for pre-season,” he says.
“I was always catching up and it definitely affected me. I also felt like I wasn’t coming back as first choice, which did disappoint and hurt me a bit. I’d just come off my best season as a footballer, but I got injured and it set me back even further. Longy came in and did well and we had Mattie Pollock on loan, with Boyley tried and tested and looking for a move to further his own career.
“Me and Longy are great mates and when you are going for the same position, nothing needs to be said. He is a competitor and he took his opportunity, I can’t deny that. I never had a gripe with any of the lads playing, but I did feel hard done. Because I’d been first choice, falling back a little bit was difficult.”
Raglan hoped for more opportunities in 2022/23 – the final year of his contract – but playing time fell again with 15 starts and eight substitute appearances in League One under new head coach Wade Elliott.
“I had a sense it was going to go that way and my biggest gripe was that I didn’t get an answer when I asked the manager if it was going to happen,” Raglan says. “It was hard for him to say and I understand that. All the loan defenders we’ve had have done well and Caleb (Taylor) was no different, with Lewis (Freestone) giving balance on the left and doing really well and Longy as captain; I had no arguments with that.
“I was in and out the previous season, but this time I was more out. They weren’t going to let me go, so where did I fit in? If I’d been told I was only going to start 15 games, I might have thought about moving on for the sake of my career, but it was never an option.”
“I focused on fighting for my place and make sure when the opportunities came, I kept the shirt. It always felt like I was filling in, no matter how well I or the team did. Wycombe and Morecambe at home and Ipswich and Forest Green in the Trophy away for example. I do empathise with the manager and he did speak to me regularly about how valued I was, but I wanted to be valued on the pitch.”
Raglan broke his toe during the first half of the vital 1-0 home win over Fleetwood Town and it proved to be his final start. After recovering, he struggled to claim a place in the match day 18 and he had to wait nine weeks before being given a chance to say goodbye with a late cameo in the final game against Charlton Athletic.
“I didn’t want the last few weeks of the season to end like that because it’s been such a great time in my life, but it petered out,” he admits. “We were trying to stay in the league and I certainly wasn’t moping about or thinking it was all about me. I continued to enjoy training and working with Marcus Bignot (first team coach) has been massive for me and I’ve really enjoyed working with him.”
Cheltenham ended up in 16th place, the second highest finish in their 136-year history. “The outcome was successful,” Raglan says.
“I think the gaffer’s biggest strength was that he didn’t change a lot, but maybe there was a slight weakness too as we didn’t change enough. There was evolution from the start to the end of the season, but we were thinking at times in the dressing room, could we push things a bit more as a team or unit and could we be working on this or that in training?
“At times it got a bit mixed up between trying things, or sticking to what we’ve been good at, but by the end of the season, with the run we had, we were finally all on the same page with what we were bringing and what we were good at. Moving forward, it works, so keep banging that drum with three or four messages that are repeated.
“Wade is a good bloke, who I like. I did feel frustrated and annoyed at him at times as he was making the decisions, but I always respected him. He’s been great with me on a personal basis, when the girls were born he shared a lot of stories about his son and his life and was always happy to chat when I knocked on the door. People are the most important thing at a club and after that, it’s easy to work well together.”
Raglan’s cameo appearance against Charlton was pre-planned and he is grateful to have been given the opportunity to wave goodbye to the fans after four-and-a-half years’ service.
“I’d made peace with the fact that it was the end of the road for me at Cheltenham,” he says. “I had an honest conversation with the manager and Russ (Milton, assistant manager), who is another great guy. The gaffer said I’d play a part to recognise what I’d done for the club and he didn’t have to do that. I am so grateful for the time I’ve had and the opportunities I’ve been given at such a great club, achieving what we did together.”
Following a team huddle immediately after the final whistle, Raglan made a beeline for his daughters, who were decked in ‘Daddy 5’ Cheltenham kits, along with his mum and sister who are regulars at matches up and down the country.
“That was a nice surprise as I didn’t know the club had sorted them out with shirts,” he says. “The reception I got was unbelievable and it felt poignant having my girls on the pitch as we made our way round to show our appreciation to the supporters.
“I must admit I wobbled when Longy gave me the armband after I went onto the pitch, which was a great gesture from a great lad. We then conceded with about 90 seconds, but thankfully Alfie (May) always finds a goal from somewhere and we ended up with a decent point. In terms of the send-off, I couldn’t have asked for any more.”
Raglan has just been to Dublin for his stag do, followed by a family holiday. A particularly busy summer continues with the completion of his degree in sports science, his Uefa B Licence and then his wedding on June 2.
On top of all that, he has the small matter of finding a new club during the close season, but there is expected to be plenty of interest, with Doncaster Rovers already thought to be keen.
“I feel I have a lot more to give and basically, I am open to offers!” he said. “Leaving Cheltenham was not easy because we achieved something special and I’ve loved the whole experience, making friends for life. But having a family makes a difference and we are back living near Stockport now. It’s exciting to think about new opportunities and lots of things I’ve learned at Cheltenham are now in my DNA, so I’ll see where it takes me.
“I remember when I signed my second contract with Michael Duff he said ‘you said you’d do this and we said we’d do that and we’ve both kept our side of the deal’, which is how I see it now: the club has been great for me and I hope I’ve offered a bit for the club too.”