From cloud nine to crushing blow: Magpies brought down to earth by Chippenham defeat

Alfie Pendlebury. Credit: MUFC

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Having been on ‘cloud nine’ after Tuesday’s win over Salisbury lifted the Magpies into the play-off places, Ryan Peters side were brought back down to earth by Saturday’s desperately underwhelming defeat at bottom of the table Chippenham Town.

The Magpies performed well below the levels expected from them - and the levels they’ve been performing to in recent weeks - as they were beaten 1-0 at Hardenhuish Park.

The game’s only goal arrived midway through the first period when Chippenham were awarded a debatable penalty that was clinically dispatched by Harry Parsons.

United only really came into the contest with any real vigour in the closing stages but didn’t test Chippenham’s keeper frequently enough for Peters’ liking, while Jordi Van Stappershoef was much the busier of the two custodians.

HP had no right to put it THAT far top bins #BlueArmy pic.twitter.com/VbJZOyC7lZ

— Chippenham Town FC (@ChipTownFC) February 28, 2026

“We were on cloud 9 after Tuesday, because we put every effort into getting that victory, and it should have set us up nicely for this game,” Peters told Maidenhead media officer Scott Hargreaves. “We’d finally managed to get ourselves into the play-off places so naturally, we’re incredibly frustrated and annoyed because we didn’t deserve anything out of this game today.

“They were by far the better team and deserved everything they got.

“We just didn’t turn up unfortunately. We knew we weren’t going to be able to pass very well on this pitch and that we’d have to be a bit more direct.

“But they had a left sided centre half who’s my height, and he won more duels than anyone. We’re frustrated today.

“Quite a few of the changes we made were enforced. Miles (Welch-Hayes) is ill, Remy, we had an issue with Rem, so we had to take him out of the side. Jordan had a calf injury. Matt Robinson had a flared knee. I didn’t want to disjoint us from Tuesday’s victory, but I think I had to make some changes because of the energy we put in on Tuesday.”

| Chippenham Town 1-0 Maidenhead United

Watch every pass, tackle and the crucial HP penalty of today's win!

https://t.co/A4NswKfj7R #BlueArmy pic.twitter.com/UaFbtExz8A

— Chippenham Town FC (@ChipTownFC) February 28, 2026

The squally conditions played into the hands of their hosts, who’ve turned around their form of late but still sit bottom of the table and four points from safety. Peters wasn’t happy with the penalty decision that went Chippenham’s way, and felt the Magpies had a couple of justifiable penalty claims of their own, but although he felt the officials were poor, he doesn’t feel his side should be relying on them to get them out of jail in a game like this.

“I’m not making any excuses, but the wind caused us havoc,” he said. “They utilised it well and they bombarded us with duels. We lost almost every duel which enabled them to play in our half a bit more.

“The penalty isn’t a penalty in my opinion; it is a shocking decision but nevertheless if we can’t keep the ball and keep giving it away, you’re going to lose these types of games.

“At least two of them were handballs. One of their players goes down holding his face and it’s never hit his face, so that’s smart. If we are waiting for a referee – who I felt was poor today – to give us a penalty, then clearly, we’ve not done well enough today.

“We can blame the ref all we like but we didn’t test their goalkeeper nearly enough and they’ve tested ours.

The result saw the Magpies fall back out of the top seven having spent the past few weeks battling hard to get themselves there. They sit 10th heading into Tuesday’s home game with AFC Totton, two points behind seventh placed Weston-Super-Mare with promotion rivals taking full advantage of this unexpected slip up.

They were second best on the pitch and second in every duel they faced, according to Peters, and he’s expecting many of those who underperformed to step up their game for Tuesday’s home game with Totton.

Peters added: “For a long time, we’ve been quietly going about our business. Our form has been pretty good. It is a blip and of course those blips feel bad.

“But the best teams will find a way to get over the line, and we didn’t today so there’s a question mark about whether we want it enough. We’ll ask that of the boys on Monday but essentially, we’ve got to get over this quickly because we’ve got another game.

“We’ve looked good through this period, and we thought it was going to be gruelling, but we can’t wait for another game now after this performance.

“I’m expecting several players to step their game up and they know it. I don’t want to take away from everything they’d done to get to this point because they’ve been brilliant and have done everything we’ve asked. But we can’t afford to have performances like that if we want to be in the play-offs.”