PRESS RELEASE

Swindon Town Supporters' Trust (TrustSTFC) today called on team captain, Andy Gurney, and last season's Player of the Year, Matt Heywood, to apologise to fans for shouting abuse and making obscene gestures to fans at last night's match against Cheltenham.

Andy Ratcliffe, Vice-chair of TrustSTFC, said "While we accept that a small minority of the crowd regrettably barracked the players during last night's game, it is unacceptable for any professional footballer, much less the team captain, to retaliate in that fashion. Ordinary fans, the majority of whom did not participate in the barracking that riled the players, were rightly outraged by these appalling gestures - after all we travel all over the country, at considerable cost in both time and money to support these guys. The least they can do is show ordinary supporters some respect."

Ratcliffe continued "Swindon Town fans and the players both need to put the last few weeks behind them and draw a line under the bad feeling that this incident has generated. In order to allow this to happen, we would urge Andy Gurney and Matt Heywood to publicly apologise to the fans, and call on the fans in turn to come along and support the team."

Let's have an end to the name calling and barracking of players on the pitch - if they're wearing a Town shirt, they're our team and we should back them."

"Everyone feels frustrated with the recent run of poor results. The last thing anyone needs right now though is animosity between the players and fans".