[ 3 May 15 ] Gillingham v Notts County - Match Thread

[Garawa]

Felt really odd leaving on a Sunday at 10am to get to a home game! First half there was loads of chances with many clumped into clumps! The Gills had 4 good chances to score in the space of 15 seconds or so and Morris twice made double saves to deny County. The second half was much poorer and when County scored you felt it was going to be one of those days. To their credit they didn't come to stifle they cam eto win and could have gone 2 up but they then seemed to switch off. They made the wrong tactical switch, Roy Carroll lost his head and when the Gills got level it was all us! 3 goals in the 7 minute spell before the final whistle.

Aaron Morris had a good game, Legge won everything in the air and Marquis was woeful. A great end to the season and a top half finish, not bad at all!

[gillsfan1066]

I wonder how many fans "HEARD" the goals and didn't actually SEE them as they wondered away from the stadium to beat the crowd. Almost feel bad for Notts County putting them down with two minutes of the game remaining.
Oh well another mediocre season comes to an end, the fans like gwaradabumseeade look upon it as a victory any time we don't go down, he and a few other Scally apologists look upon staying up as a victory, ( I love you really old darling), he will learn by the time he gets to Mr. Lidbits age that 12th in the table is not really very good.
Personally I think the whole season was a pretty drab affair, a few good wins when I thought we were going to be blown out of the water in early 2015 made it fun for a while, but to many reports by the fans who were there saying things like " The first half was awful without Gillingham doing much, only late in the second half did they start to play . "
I hope Scally gets Glasgow the players he wants over the summer, and we get a couple of tough preseason games under out belt ,not the tomato can events we had this year to start the 2015/16 campaign, then a run of five or six wins to get the season underway and get everyone excited again, talk of promotion in the air.
Have a great summer everyone, GO BLACKHAWKS, GO CUBS, GO FIRE, and see you in the fall.

[baronnight]

Looking at attendances/budgets mid-table is exactly where we should finish and you can't get more mid-table than 12th, however, looking at the 2nd half of the season (37 points from 23 games) is actually playoff form. For a team that was widely tipped for relegation back in August I see this as positive progress.
Whilst I believe strengthening in the summer would be good, let's remember that our second half performance would have seen us in 5th place so be mindful of not throwing out the baby with the bath water. With such a young squad this year, natural development should see an improved performance without radical changes.

[Kent_UckyFriedGills]

I enjoyed the game yesterday,it was great that it was not a drab affair between two sides that were on their holiday`s.County needed a win to stay up,and Edinburgh wanted us to be on it like it was August.I thought we put a lot of effort in,and could have scored a couple of goals in the first half.We had one off the line,and Dack had a long range shot go just wide with Carroll out of his goal.County looked right up for the fight,they could have had 3-4 goals in the first half,but Glenn Morris pulled off some great saves.The second half to start with was a bit gritty,but a long ball over the top from one of their players found Burke who finished well past Morris.The goal sent their 2,058 fans mental,and I haven`t heard noise like that in the away end for a few years.It did look like they would see out the win as they were defending deep and had about 9 players around their area at times.I think the subs from County was their own down fall,plus their players starting to time waste and feign injury.It got the ground irritated,and the players responded to it.Egan equalised in the 88th minute with a good header,and County just collapsed.In the 93rd minute sub Dickenson hit a nice finish in the corner to relegate them.Noris also come on as a sub hit them on the counter with a third goal as they threw men forward.

It was a mad 7 minutes,but a great way to end the season.I feel for the County fans as relegation always hurts and they supported their Team for the 90 minutes,their players antics cost them safety I felt.MOTM? I thought Loft,and Dack had good games,but the defence is where the MOTM comes from.Egan,Legge,and Ehmer were outstanding heading every ball away,and dominating their 6ft 4 Hungarian striker.Morris also was right up there for a string of brilliant saves in the first half.I`m going to give it to Egan who also scored a decent header at the Rainham end.

The season is over,and i`m pleased with our top half finish,and reaching 62 minutes.At Christmas we looked likely to go down,but fair play to Scally for making a tough decision to get rid of Taylor.The gang of four took the reigns and changed our style and gave our players a chance to express themselves,which was always missing under Taylor.We were always conservative with Taylor,and played the same cautious way whether it was Bristol City or Brackley.Also credit to Edinburgh who has continued where the gang of 4 left off and put us in a healthy position,and giving us a positive outlook for next season.

[Garawa]

You have to build, it takes time. Each time you try to better the last performance but try to run before you walk and you fall.....back into League 2! Yes I am happy with 12th as we were 23rd at Christmas as it is a big improvement on last year. Fans need a massive dose of realism. I have heard that Fleetwood aim to continue their rise, Newport want to do a Bournemouth, Maidstone want to take the league by storm with a plastic pitch and Ebbsfleet are going to be the next Crawley who themselves had massive plans and now find themselves falling back to where they came from. There are more where they came from not to mention the likes of Sheffield Utd, Swindon, Portsmouth and Bradford who all aspire to get back into the Prem. Most of the Championship is proliferated by sides who have recently been Premier League sides and are desperate to get back there.

Its great to have ambition and we should have the same but our fans EXPECT success when in truth more often than not we were the side battling on the final day like Notts County (it was a rare treat)! About 75% of the league below the top flight all have grand plans to be a big successful club and so do we it seems with our 5.5k attendances. If anyone things we can rival these teams there is a lot of delusion about! Look how badly Blackpool have fallen and I would take being a Gills fans over them any day!

I am not saying we give up and have no ambition. We cannot out-compete these clubs but some will suffer a fall of grace and with the right approach there is always a chance to over-achieve and who knows where that might lead but that will only happen with a solid side, a slick team which knows each other inside out and an improvement over a a couple of seasons and it all takes time.

[gillsfan1066]

See that's where we differ, your happy to survive in Division One playing Port Vale and Colchester year after year, going down a division then having to climb back up again, celebrating PROMOTION, what a great club we are, back in the mighty First Division, where we wallow in mediocrity for a few years before going back down again.
The Fans need a dose of realism, WE HAVE HAD YOUR ******* DOSE of REALISM FOR A HUNDRED *******YEARS , JEEZZZ HOW LONG DOES THIS MEDICINE TAKE TO WORK.
I am sorry Mr Garawadeboomseyadee, but you have drunk to much of Scallys cool-aid, he is "Mr. I am just happy to be here," and your becoming the same, and yes I supported that guy to the ends of the earth for saving GFC when he did, but that was back in 1995, twenty years ago and from what I can see he has done nothing in the past 10 years since we were relegated from the Championship that has improved GFC in any way shape or form other than make the club the laughing stock of the league and found a way to hide everything that goes on inside of Pretfield, creeping round like a thief in the night,no one must know anything.
For fifty years I have watched them do NOTHING ,EXCEPT FOR ONE WONDERFUL FOUR YEAR SPELL, oh yeah and and win two Fourth Division trophy's ,excuse me if I don't stand up and light a cigar or open a bottle of champers for that.
I know the ride Blackpool has had over the last 15 years, has not been that great, financial worry's, more managers than God has Saints, but like Wigan at least they got to play in the Premier, in 2000 they were in the Fourth Division, and yes today there coming back into our division but how can you say GFC is any better position than Blackpool or Wigan , and at least they have BEEN THERE, we never ever even came close .
Blackpools population is a 140,000 , Medways 260,000, and like us they have a bunch of teams 45 minutes away, but the people of Kent don't support football like the rest of the country, bah rubbish, the dam team is not being promoted properly,were still in the dark ages , might as well have Dr Grossmark back in charge.
As for building for the future , when the hell does the building stop and we get to live in the dam house ?? This time next year when we just miss making it into the Championship Division, and teams come and snap up Dack , Marquise, and Cody what do we do, start rebuilding again ??
The only title worth winning is this years title, no one has a clue what's going to happen next year or the year after. Look at Hull cruising along nicely, bunch of injuries ,now on the verge of relegation, you never know whats going to happen next year.
The money Scally and his family spend flying backwards and forwards to Dubai each year would pay for a good player or two, but anyway I have to go, Stevie Bruce needs my support to help him stay up, there down 0-2 already ,opps make that 0-3, lol.

[Garawa]

The key issue is that each time a major change occurs the rebuilding starts. You push the reset button, some are bigger than others. After Allen we had MAJOR changes and just staying in League 1 was a massive achievement. The Edinburgh change was a much smaller one.

I never stated that I am happy to stay in this division more needing to build for the future as we don't have the same ability as others. I could be in a room full of sprinters all wanting to beat Usain Bolt but it isn't going to happen. Train hard every day, build and build and build and hope he has an off-day and you never know. Like all sports there are always much bigger and better rivals and the only way you can beat them is by doing what you do to 100% as it's better to be a mediocre competitor at 100% as opposed to a great one at 60%. Just ask Tiger Woods!

[Rimshot]

Yes, ambition for better things is an entirely unreasonable expectation of Sheik Scally. Just ask Bournemouth and Watford. Or those dreadful people at Mk Dons , great new stadium and Championship football in 11 years.

[gillsfan1066]

Are we talking about the same Tiger Woods who is worth around a billion dollars, who has won like 14 Majors, 72 PGA events, 40 European events and a handful of other events world wide and about 20 amateur titles , THAT TIGER WOODS ??
I am like you, I normally use Tiger and GFC in the same sentence when talking about Gillingham footie, they go together so obviously don't they ??
In ten years half the athletes running would beat Bolt if they were running backwards if he were still racing, ( and by the way I couldn't work out why you were comparing SPINSTERS with Bolt, need new glasses, haha ) GFC can re load every year, but they don't because they have an owner who is happy just to tell anyone who will listen that he is someone special, he owns a football team in England.
I bet he follows that comment with, Were going places next year, next year is our year, new stadium, new manager ,new players , you should invest in my company, got a couple of million in your back pocket, then turns to his wife and says does that sound convincing darling, she giggles , eats another sheep's eye ball and he tucks into his camel hump all happy and proud of himself ?

[fan_of_mulligan]

http://fan-of-mulligan.tumblr.com/post/118519013342/fom-blog-gillingham-3-1-notts-county

Here is My FOM BLOG for Gillingham's 3 - 1 win against Notts County - Enjoy