Gillingham (0) 2 Nichols 57 O'Brien 71
Crewe Alexandra (0) 1 Ainley 62
Attendance: 5,796
Admission: £19
Mileage: 40/6,387
Tuesday night, for the first time in three years, I sat in my old season ticket seat of 20+ years in the Gordon Road Stand. On my occasional visits this season I have borrowed my brother’s Rainham End season but find the atmosphere, shall we say a bit too raucous. I counted a dozen supporters that have continued to sit in their seats for the duration of my absence and it was good to sit there and witness a different, more senior, set of people’s feelings on the new era. Without doubt the atmosphere is better, it could hardly have gotten worse, but I sense that the feel good factor of the Galinson’s is fragile. Now, that feeling is not in any way a thought that the Galinson’s have had a honeymoon period and that is coming to an end but that I don’t think the type of football that was on offer on the night is going to be tolerated past the end of this season and safety.
Despite the wins and good home form, I don’t get the impression that Neil Harris has won over the support entirely. People presently seem prepared to a certain extent to give him the benefit of the doubt given the past situation but, with a summer rebuild, I think Gillingham supporters deserve better. I could not put up with a whole season of what I saw on Tuesday.
The manager had to rip up the team sheet and start again in January with a view to getting out of the mess they were in, and to Harris’ credit, he has almost certainly achieved that objective. The next stage is to build a squad that can challenge at the other end of the table and my guess is that the process will involve another shredding and another restart.
It’s good to see 5,700-odd on a Tuesday night when the visitors bring less than 100. And it’s good to see merchandising and catering outlets open and doing business but I feel Brad and Shannon have a lot of work to do and that might eventually include sacking Harris.
The first half was as turgid as anything I’ve watched anywhere all season. Crewe were just dreadful and Gillingham no better. One chance saw Crewe’s Dan Agyei drag a shot wide and that was that.
Surely the second half would see some improvement and given there were three goals, two of which were really good goals, then there was. On 57 minutes, the opening goal was scored by the home side. Alex McDonald had been taking a bit of stick from those around me, but his busy style marked him out as the player most likely to unlock the Crewe defence and so it was when he swept a crossfield pass to Tom Nicholls, whose first time effort from the left hand edge of the six yard box found the far bottom corner.
Crewe struck back almost immediately and, on 61 minutes, a cross from Rio Adebisi struck the top of the bar and the ball was headed away for a corner from which Callum Ainley struck a superb volley into the far corner. Gillingham failed to clear their lines and when the ball was recycled it fell at the feet of Ainley, somewhat fortuitously, but from there it was a great finish.
On 71 minutes the Gills got their noses in front once more when Crewe made a hash of clearing the ball it was fed to Aidan O’Brien whose shot went in off the advancing goalkeeper.
In the final minute, Gillingham thought the game had been made safe when Oliie Hawkins headed in but the referee decided that the tall striker had fouled his marker and disallowed it. It seemed a harsh decision and Harris certainly felt so but his protestations were too strong and he saw red for his troubles.
Gillingham survived a time added scare, courtesy of goalkeeper Glenn Morris who made two close range saves before the ball was hacked to safety and the valuable points secured.
From a personal point of view, I’m quite sad that I cannot rekindle that buzz I had with Gillingham. I want them to win, but I just don’t get that knot in my stomach that I get when Tonbridge are defending a 2-1 lead with five minutes to go. I celebrated with everyone else that last ditch defending in the final moments but I almost felt that I was feigning the emotion! What I had, just isn’t there anymore. That’s fine because I have it with the Angels but emotionally I don’t want to completely divorce myself from the Gills. If that sounds like a bit of psycho babble it probably is!
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