Season Review 2009-10

What a strange one!

The fourth year of That’ll Be The Day maintains the record of each season Gillingham being in a different division to the year previous, and just how did it happen this time around.

They went into the last game of the season the unlikeliest of the clubs involved to be relegated but still managed to make it happen and I still scratch my head as to why. How can a team that managed to amass 44 points from home fixtures end up relegated, easy when you only end up with 50. Six measly points on the road without a single away win makes for some pretty depressing travelling and boy did we have some bizarre days.

Who would have predicted the final outcome back in the warmth of August’s opening day. The old enemy, Swindon Town, were rolled to one side in a stunning five-goal blitz and for two hours we were the embryonic leaders of League One. Two away defeats followed, but the performances at Tranmere and Colchester were encouraging and offered no clues to the barren travels that would follow.

By the end of October the alarm bells were starting to ring despite a mid-table position. Solid home performances were being undermined by a record of a solitary draw at Walsall in eight away trips and the early encouragement in defeat had been replaced by some heavy defeats at Leeds and Southampton and woeful performances in defeat at Milton Keynes and Brighton.

October also saw the first of our travelling nightmares with a Friday night game at Southend. Friday is always a perilous night at the Dartford Tunnel and this particular rush hour saw a two hour wait to enter the tunnel and a mad dash once we had made it through. We missed the first 20 minutes and Gillingham wrapped up a forgettable night with another defeat.

The very next of our travels took us to Bristol Rovers and a day of torrential rain, it also became known as dog shit day. Needless to say, we lost, albeit to a late goal after an inexplicable mistake by loanee Matt Fry. After a difficult journey home, as a passenger, I drove my own car back home from my brother’s house. Whether through tiredness or just plain bad driving I misjudged the whereabouts of my front step and burst a tyre on its corner. In the rain, I decided that changing the wheel could wait until the next day. What Sunday brought was a second flat tyre, so now I had to wheel one of the tyres to the local garage for changing and in the process I wheeled it through dog shit and onto my hands!

These occurrences come in threes and so it was to the most bizarre of the lot. The next away fixture was at Leyton Orient and once again the Dartford Tunnel comes into play. Despite a delay we are still in good time when we come to a halt on the A12. East London was gridlocked by a prat on a roof throwing bricks at passing cars and for the first time in my football watching life I missed the match that I had set out for as we failed to get to within a couple of miles of Brisbane Road. And, par for the course, Gillingham lost with half of the team stuck in the same jam also not making the kick off.

By the turn of the year a second away point had been extracted from 12 games on the road but still the home form was keeping our heads above water. The harsh winter was also beginning to take a grip and a trip north to Accrington for a FA Cup 3rd round match had to be aborted at Oxford because of a frozen pitch. A visit from Premier League Fulham was to be the prize but the in the re-arranged tie Gillingham meekly surrendered.

In February saw a horrific defeat at Brentford followed by a rare defeat at home to Tranmere and now alarm bells were well and truly ringing as Gillingham slipped into the bottom four and the calls for Mark Stimson’s head were ever louder.

Results slightly improved, still no away wins, but the points tally now registered at six with an uplifting experience at The Valley coupled with a home win over promotion-chasing Huddersfield seeing Gillingham once again clamber clear of the bottom four.

The final run-in and woeful performances at Oldham and Millwall were counter-balanced with superb home wins over Southend and Leeds and when Southampton were beaten at Priestfield in the penultimate game surely nothing could go wrong at Wycombe.

The fates at Adams Park decreed that a spineless showing in a 3-0 defeat was worthy of results elsewhere conspiring to put Gillingham back into the Football League’s basement after just one season.

Were we unlucky? Perhaps so. For every one of four results to go against us, is indeed unfortunate, but the fact remains everything was in our hands and we blew it.

Mark Stimson’s tenure was quickly brought to a close in its wake and the vast majority shed no tears.

In the Ryman Premier, another manager, Tommy Warrilow was also feeling the heat around the turn of the year. Languishing in the bottom four and slaughtered at Hastings soon after New Year, Tonbridge went on a run of just two defeats in 13 games, unbeaten in 10 to haul themselves not only clear of the relegation zone but onto the fringes of the play-offs and, indeed, they mathematically went into the final game of the season still with a chance of making the top five. But fixture congestion and three final games, all away from home, were too much of a mountain to climb and defeats at Wealdstone and Aveley sealed their fate.

The reason this Review is late on the board is because of England’s participation at the World Cup, or should it be non-participation. Qualification had been nigh perfect, there was the memorable night in September when our old nemesis Croatia were put to the sword with a stunning 5-1 victory and our place in South Africa sealed with games to spare. In the Croatia match posting I wrote:

We go to every World Cup Finals with misguided hopes, the cart goes in front of the horse and we are always left disappointed. Will those expectations be different this time? Probably not, and mainly because we are good, very good.

Well, I got the horse and cart right, but good? Oh dear, oh dear. What happened in South Africa needs no reviewing aside from the unnecessary observation that we were crap.

From a personal point of view, all the planning that went into making the trip for the later stages of the competition went tits up as the Germans wiped the floor with us. Money that, for the most part will be refunded, had been tied up for months but it was the undoing of all the carefully prepared strands that was the most heartbreaking.

New stadiums for Colchester United and Milton Keynes were visited with MK being easily the more impressive. Pre-season added three more to the list with Dartford’s highly praised Princes Park, the less than salubrious Thurrock and a French visit to Calais and their new stadium.

End of season totals: Games 2,067. Grounds: 235

Season Review 2008/09

In July 2007 I began writing this blog That’ll Be The Day. It was so entitled because the first game to be covered was England’s opening match at the new Wembley against Brazil and I dreamed that its first season would end back at the national stadium with Gillingham, that’ll be the day was the sign-off remark. Of course, it didn’t happen, quite the reverse as Gillingham were relegated, but this season that day did come and, of course, nobody needs reminding of the outcome.

A poor pre-season had left very little optimism. New arrivals had been thin on the ground. Mark McCammon was the headline signing from Doncaster Rovers, Alan Julian had arrived as competition between the sticks and Curtis Weston started the season as a loanee from Leeds United. Defeats were suffered at non-league outposts such as Grays and Dover and the prestige friendly at Priestfield against Birmingham was also lost. McCammon failed to make an appearance, so any hope of his partnership with Simeon Jackson hitting the ground running was lost.

The season’s opener at Bournemouth was beset with problems for the travelling Gills support with one of the coaches not arriving until half time. They missed a half of Gillingham dominance but falling behind to a Darren Anderton goal, but everybody should have made it in time to see Gary Mulligan’s injury time strike for a well-deserved point. Our Carling Cup run lasted just one round as Colchester United left Priestfield with a single goal victory and when the heavily points-penalised Luton Town left Priestfield the following Saturday with all three points black clouds were already gathering.

The first four months of the season was traditional fare for Gillingham supporters with a solid home record being undermined by poor away performances. Despite winning on the second of their travels at Darlington, there was no joy for the travelling faithful until November when a single goal victory was picked up at lowly Macclesfield. During this period the shocking experience at Shrewsbury was suffered alongside desperately poor performances at Exeter and Lincoln. A different, altogether more disturbing set of problems were encountered at Aldershot were the home support has had a notorious reputation during their stay in non-league and they seem intent on furthering it in the Football League. Unfortunately Gillingham’s support was not blameless on a day that resembled a throwback to the 1980s as ugly scenes were witnessed outside the Beehive pub. Despite playing for a large part of the game with ten men following McCammon’s sending off, Gillingham put in a much improved performance but lost to a late goal.

During this period their top half position was almost entirely due to a home run that stretched from that first game defeat against Luton through to late January when Lincoln finally broke an unbeaten sequence of 12 games.

September brought about the first turning point of the season. Charlie Daniels had enjoyed a largely successful month-long spell on loan from Tottenham, highlighted by a superb free kick goal against Grimsby and it was viewed with much disappointment when he opted to return to White Hart Lane to fight for a first eleven spot in the Premiership. In his place (although they played together for one game against Port Vale) came another loanee from Spurs, Andy Barcham, who was to play a significant part in the manner in which the season unfolded.

With no indication that the away form was about to turn, it suddenly did so. The scruffy, single goal victory at Macclesfield was followed up by a far more impressive and surprising FA Cup win at Bury. When Rotherham were swept aside at Priestfield, Gillingham moved into the play-off places. But it was back to earth with an almighty bump as Bury avenged the Cup defeat with a 4-0 thumping at Gigg Lane and when a very good Rochdale side took away a point from Priestfield, Gillingham were heading back in the direction of the middle of the table.

Its was the FA Cup 2nd Round that produced the second turning point of the season. A good home performance against League One Stockport went unrewarded with a goalless draw and elimination seemed inevitable but a well deserved win at Edgeley Park with two goals from Barcham earned a lucrative tie at home to Premiership Aston Villa. The Christmas period brought promotion rivals Brentford and Wycombe to Priestfield, both matches ending in draws when the home side deserved a lot more, but a thoroughly unsatisfactory performance at Dagenham ruined the fans’ Boxing Day.

A capacity crowd and the ITV cameras welcomed Aston Villa and Gillingham did themselves proud. Simeon Jackson scored a superb equaliser and for a while the Premiership giants were rocked but a late, disputed penalty saw the visitors into the fourth round.

With a little national acclaim ringing in their ears Gillingham went back onto the road and won twice in quick succession. A hard fought single goal victory at Morecambe was backed up with a 3-1 win at Port Vale. Meanwhile in the League the unbeaten home record was continuing and when Exeter were beaten the run was extended to 12 games without defeat. Unfortunately it was unlucky 13 as Lincoln came away with injury time winner to complete a double over the Kent club.

A third successive victory on the road was earned at Chester, but after the long unbeaten run, two defeats on the trot was suffered at home when Bradford City were well worth their 2-0 victory and Gillingham slipped back into the middle of the table following a 2-0 defeat at Rotherham.

An amazing 4-4 draw at Priestfield with Aldershot was good spectator viewing but did little to enforce any optimism that Gillingham were to make up the ground on the leaders. But such was the congestion at the top of the table when successive home wins against Macclesfield and Bournemouth were achieved they were back in the play-off places. A hard fought goalless draw on an atrocious night at Luton was followed by a two goal win at Accrington and when a 94th minute penalty won the home game against Darlington it appeared Lady Luck was also beginning to give Gillngham the glad eye.

Revenge was about to taste so sweet as Gillingham took a 2-0 lead against Shrewsbury but their tormentor-in-chief Grant Holt’s two goals denied that satisfaction. On another cold night in a particularly cold winter at Notts County a Simeon Jackson goal was enough to secure a seventh away win and suddenly Gillingham were sitting in second place in the table. Such was the unpredictability of the Division that having reached the dizzy heights a 3-0 pasting at relegation threatened Grimsby was almost inevitable.

At a bad time in the season to enter into a string of poor results, a good performance at League leaders Brentford was only rewarded with a point and another relegation threatened side Barnet won a bit too easily at Priestfield. Another reasonable performance at Wycombe went unrewarded and saw an element of Gillingham’s support turn shamefully on Adam Miller.

Easter Monday’s fixture against play-off outsiders Dagenham resulted in a late Dennis Oli winner to leave Gillingham six points inside the play-off spots with only three games remaining. This was all but rubber-stamped with a win at Chesterfield. A final home victory against Bury, themselves in with a similar chance of automatic promotion, was needed to remain in contention for a top three place, but a draw satisfied neither party and ultimately both had to settle for the play-offs. Fate had dealt its hand that Gillingham’s final opponents, Rochdale, would also be their play-off adversaries, so both managers elected to play weakened sides for the fixture that was won by Gillingham by the odd goal securing their ninth away league victory of the season, who would have guessed that figure going into November with that solitary victory at Darlington.

A cagey first leg affair at Spotland saw Gillingham earn a well-deserved goalless draw and in the return leg a Simeon Jackson penalty saw Gillingham through to Wembley with the opportunity to finally exorcise the memory of the nightmare of September 2008. It is interesting to note, and a credit to Mark Stimson, that the side that faced Shrewsbury at Wembley contained eight of the team that had been hammered 7-0 at the ProStar and two of the remaining three were on the bench for the Final on 23 May 2009 and, of course, That Was The Day.

As the phrase goes “it’s not the way you start it’s the way you finish”. For Gillingham this produced a successful conclusion, for Tonbridge it was all about the finish with a play-off heartache and off the pitch a worrying scenario unfolded.

Dover left everybody trailing in their wake in the Ryman Premier while Staines and Tonbridge occupied the leading play-off spots throughout the season. A home play-off fixture was attained by virtue of their third position finish, but there was always a suspicion that the inconsistent home form throughout the season might negate the supposed advantage and so it proved. Tonbridge lost on the night to a far superior Carshalton Athletic side that had been well beaten by the Angels twice in quick succession in February/March. Staines went on to win the play-offs defeating Carshalton by a single goal.

Sadly, in matters that pale football into insignificance, a situation behind-the-scenes had begun to unfold in March. Garry Pass, co-chairman and benefactor to the club, suffered a heart attack which necessitated that he take a backward step from club affairs. By the end of the season his health dictated that he step down completely. Alongside Nick Sullivan, Tonbridge had made great strides during the Pass time of office. The main stand had been fully seated and when a player (or two) was needed for a final push by Tommy Warrilow, money was found to bring in Steve Ferguson, a player with pedigree.

Following the play-off defeat, but with no indication that it was of a consequence, Nick Sullivan also decided that it was time to call a halt to his tenure. A new board was assembled but the club was in a state of uncertainty as Warrilow was told that he would have to work within a much reduced budget for the coming season.

New chairman Steve Churcher has held a public meeting to openly speak of the club’s situation and the mood has become guardedly optimistic. Some players have left the club and more may follow but the basis of a side that will be competitive is in place and the manager has pledged his future to the club.

Gillingham’s success meant that I did not see Tonbridge nearly enough during the season. But what I did see produced a couple of memorable occasions. Firstly there was the 7-1 demolition at Ashford, Middlesex and then in the return fixture a remarkable comeback to win 3-2, one of the best games I saw during the season.

At the time of writing last year's review Fabio Capello had had a couple of uninspiring friendlies in charge and I was commenting that time would be needed to shake up England's over-paid ego-ridden stars. Twelve months later, one foot and a few toes are most firmly in the door as England march towards the World Cup Finals in South Africa. The Wembley viewing has not always been great, but a stunning away victory in Croatia followed by easy victories in Belarus and Kazakhstan has seen the national side on the threshold with a seven out of seven group record. We had a very cold, but enjoyable trip to Berlin for the 2-1 friendly win against the old enemy at the charismatic old Olympic Stadium.

On a personal basis the 2,000th game was passed fittingly at the Play-off Semi-Final at Rochdale. Eight new grounds pushed the total to 230 with new League grounds visited at Morecambe and Accrington, plus new stadiums at Shrewsbury and Darlington and a temporary home for Rotherham. Berlin provided the highlight of the visits and Bly Spartans the most humble.

End of season totals: Games 2,003. Grounds: 230

Season Review 2007-08

Take a look at the banner heading because it will change in August, but it does relate to the season departed. Firstly, the blog was to put a boring season behind me, well 07-08 was far from boring and it was also to start and, hopefully, end at Wembley, well it did that, but not with Gillingham.

When I started this blog back in July, I had no reason to think that all three of the teams I support would sack their manager, two, in effect, would suffer relegation and the third heartbreakingly losing out on a play-off place on the last day.

Gillingham were a disaster from virtually the first whistle to the last. Hopes were reasonably high going into the opening fixture at Cheltenham. I had previewed the season sensing a “whiff of optimism”, feelings built on experienced players replacing some of the dead beats that had turned the previous season into a relegation-threatened one. Steve Lomas, Delroy Facey, David Graham and Efe Sodje had come with reputations and Craig Armstrong, who had been relentlessly chased by Ronnie Jepson. Each of them has since left the club, undoubtedly at the great expense of contracts being paid up. Lomas was just awful, his high point being a pre-season friendly against Colchester. Rod Wallace and Tommy Johnson were always accused of being last pay-day players, only at Priestfield to top up the pension, but in comparison to Lomas they positively bristled with enthusiasm. Facey was fat, lazy and when you saw the goal he scored at Swansea, frustrating. Sodje was perhaps a little unlucky, though his defensive qualities were regularly questioned. A horrendous facial injury at Yeovil was sustained and with the arrival of a new manager he never recovered his place. Armstrong managed to quickly fall out with the new man and he was on his way back to Cheltenham, using his Face Book page to throw as much dirt as possible.

Two of Jepson’s signing were stand-out successes. Simon Royce was player of the year and his runner-up, Simon King, had superb seasons. Royce, overworked, excelled throughout and King who after being signed for £200,000 strangely found a place in the team hard come-by early in the season flourished under Stimson.

Early season optimism quickly evaporated as they opened the season with four straight defeats including a Carling Cup exit at Watford. A couple of home wins in September papered over the cracks that were being relentlessly exposed on the road. Heavy defeats at Southend and Nottingham Forest was then followed by a humiliating 5-0 rout at arch-enemies Swindon saw the exit door open for Ronnie Jepson.

At this point I will digress from Gillingham as this period was just about the strangest set of coincidences. I blogged at the time that to lose a manager is unfortunate, to lose two is careless, but to lose all three, meant I should have taken more care with the choosing of the teams I support. Following Jepson a month later, Tony Dolby was fired at Tonbridge and following the failure of the national team to qualify for Euro 2008, the wally with the brolly was sacked by the FA.

Back with Gillingham, Iffy Onuora caretakered for a month with relative success built on avoidance of defeat in three home games before on November 1st Mark Stimson was appointed the new manager. This was to be Stimson’s first Football League job having had success in non-league with Grays and Stevenage. That Delroy Facey goal mentioned earlier gained Gillingham their first point on the road at the seventh attempt despite being battered by 10-men Swansea. A creditable draw at home to an impressive Doncaster side might have strengthened the view that Scally had indeed picked the right man but for an unforgivable performance at Barnet in the FA Cup highlighted the magnitude of the job in front of Stimson. The Stimson revolution began from this point with signings being made from non-league, but this defeat meant the end of the line for the lamentable Lomas, with Brown, Cogan, Sodje, Graham, Cox all heading for the exit door during the coming weeks. Many people have drawn the conclusion that Stimson changed too much, too quickly but the memory of this appalling display still leaves a bad taste and changes were forced upon him by a group of players acting in the most unprofessional of manners.

In from the non-league ranks came a mixture of players, some of whom performed with varying degrees of success, and some haven’t come up to scratch. Success can be attributed to Adam Miller and John Nutter, potential is seen in Simeon Jackson and Stuart Lewis and the jury is still out on Dennis Oli. Stuart Thurgood has come and gone, Leroy Griffiths was not retained at the season’s end and Barry Fuller has failed to make an impression.

Stimson also employed a few loan players as he tried to instill into the team a spirit and a work ethic to complement his own. Results were patchy to be more than kind and these were being obtained on the back of goals from Charlton loanee Chris Dickson. A first away win of the season was achieved at Crewe in early December, only for the bottom club, Port Vale to come to Priestfield four days later and win. A corner appeared to have been turned with a superb victory over Nottingham Forest, followed by an away draw with high-flying Leyton Orient and when a second away win was achieved at Huddersfield, the dizzy heights of 13th had been achieved. A seven game winless run plunged Gillingham back into the mire by the end of February including a humiliating 4-0 defeat at Northampton. A home win against Huddersfield broke up a run that went to just that win in 13 games ending with a shocking home defeat against Crewe that resulted in all sorts of recriminations. Chairman Scally took a whole load of abuse in the ground, his car had rocks thrown at it and his programme notes he subsequently labelled Gillingham fans, Scumbags and for the programme notes against Bournemouth he wrote nothing at all.

The last nine games produced only two further wins and ten points, but at least they showed a certain spirit that had been so lacking earlier in the season, especially under Jepson and the early days of Stimson. A last day defeat at Leeds consigned Gillingham back to the basement division from where Paul Scally had taken over the club back in 1994.

The future is now shrouded with doubt, antagonism, but even a little optimism. There are doubts are to Mr Scally’s plans for the future. He has decamped his family home to Dubai and following the relegation and the continuing fall-out from the Crewe game, leaves me to wonder whether he really has the stomach to start again. Of course, he says he has. Supporters are also divided on Mark Stimson. Personally, I’m ready to give him a fresh start in August and see where it takes us with a guarded optimism that he might be on the right track in a lower division.

Tonbridge also suffered from a shaky start and sacked Tony Dolby at the end of October following a disappointing FA Cup exit at Ware. Tommy Warrilow was brought to the club from Horsham and there was no initial improvement in fortunes. But from the end of February they went on an amazing run of seven straight wins, broken only by a injury time winner for champions-elect Chelmsford City and this was extended to eight wins out of nine, catapulting them into a play-off position. Sadly, it didn’t quite pan out with two draws and a defeat in the final three games, but the seeds of potential success have been sown and everybody is looking forward to next season at Longmead with the highest of hopes.

Tonbridge supplied most of the highlights of my season. Top of the tree was their Trophy success over Conference side Oxford United. Over the two games they deservedly won the replay at Longmead having had the better of the game at the Kassam in the first meeting. Then in the midst of their seven game run they completely took apart a very decent Hendon side in a four goal win.

Warrilow made some very successful captures to strengthen the squad after his arrival. He responded to the disappointing loss of Jon Main to AFC Wimbledon with the signing of Carl Rook. Like his manager, Rook had a slow start, but once he got on the score sheet the goals just kept coming. John Westcott also made valuable contributions with his excellent wing play. But there were players already at the club that went from strength to strength following Warrilow’s arrival. Keeper Matt Reed, seemed to grow in confidence with every game, Matt Lovell, James Donovan and Tommy Tyne all seemed better players within the new regime.

The future is bright at Tonbridge. Plans are in place to put 600 seats into the main stand and there other major improvements on the agenda with a £100,000 investment. They’ve got it right on the pitch, now they are going to get it right off it. For the Angels, next season won’t come quickly enough.

England, oh my God, England. Wembley finally opened, it was a jaw-dropping experience walking into that fabulous stadium. It was also jaw-dropping to watch the utter dross that the national team have managed to serve up since. The atmosphere on international days has been almost funereal as the side have failed to excite their loyal support. Ultimately, Croatia left our pampered prima donnas with the task of getting a nice tan this summer rather than challenging for European honours. On a sodden, miserable night at Wembley, we had Scott Carson howlers, a stirring comeback and a 3-2 defeat that consigned England to the beach and the wally with the brolly to the employment exchange.

Fabio Capello has come in to shake up this bunch of over-paid failures. Perhaps, in time, he will achieve, but the first couple of friendlies have been far from inspiring.

On a personal basis the season was good. There was always interest with Gillingham at the bottom, Tonbridge chasing the top and England supplying the boredom. Sixty-seven games is a good return, although new grounds were thin on the ground. No new league grounds were added, Staines Town and Maidstone’s lodgings at Sittingbourne added couple of non-league venues and internationally, there was a spectacular visit to Moscow and the Stade de France in Paris, taking the total to 222.

The 2,000th match is now 65 games away, so it is reasonable to think that next season will see that milestone passed. The blog has driven me on at times and I’ve enjoyed doing it immensely. Hopefully my authorship has improved over the course of the year and That’ll be the Day will be back again next season.

End of season totals: Games 1,935. Grounds: 222

A season to forget - a review of 2006-07

Forty-eight games in a season is an exceptionally poor return for me and as I said in my opening post perhaps I fell out of love with football a little bit. Gillingham were pretty poor for the most part, despite having a great home record with 14 wins the football for the most part was mediocre. The form away from Priestfield was dire with just three wins all season. There were some highlights, the wins over Millwall (always satisfying) and Swansea in the space of four days in September, the Friday night win on Sky over Tranmere and the Easter Monday triumph against Bristol City, but these were offset by shocking performances against Northampton and Brighton. As I am no longer a regular traveller I was not privy to any of our wins at Doncaster, Tranmere and Chesterfield, but was in attendance for the disastrous last 15 minutes at Leyton Orient, where we conspired to lose a three goal lead to a hat-trick from a full back. Thankfully my reluctance to travel meant I avoided the lengthy trek to Carlisle for a 5-0 defeat, the 4-1 hammering at Oldham and even the New Years Day 4-1 reverse at Millwall.

So where did it all go wrong? Two areas can be easily pinpointed, we conceded 75 goals and had the second worst goal difference in the Division, only bottom club Brentford had a worse goal difference but even they let in less goals. The reason for this poor defensive showing were the use of six goalkeepers during the season, Kelvin Jack played only nine games through lack of fitness and loan keepers came and went and the lack of an established central defensive partnership. Brent Sancho fell out of favour early on and Gillingham never really found the right combination until late in the term when Ian Cox found a bit of form alongside long-term loanee Ben Chorley. In attack there was never a consistent partner for Gary Mulligan. Ndumbo-Nsungo and McDonald were particularly disappointing and the season ended with Danny Spiller having to fill in up front. Goals were not a real problem, we scored more than most, but they came in the greatest part from midfield with Michael Flynn, the club's leading scorer with 12.

A lack of resources was bemoaned all season by both Jepson and Scally and a better budget has been promised for next season by the chairman. Three-quarters of the squad end the season out of contract, so there is plenty of scope for wheeling and dealing during the summer.

Tonbridge consolidated their position in the Ryman Premier admirably, in fact they flirted with the play-off positions for most of the season, but had to settle for an eleventh place finish. In Jon Main they had a striker who had a glorious season, scoring over 40 goals and attracting the attention of Championship clubs such as Wolves. They also frustrated on occasions, one shocker of a evening against East Thurrock.

England were also pretty much a disaster area. Following the poor World Cup, Steve McClaren took over and results went from bad to worse, culminating in a unsatisfactory win over Andorra that met with much abuse from the travelling English support. Due to family reasons I did not make the trip to Barcelona and have to say on and off the field I was glad not to have been a part of what went on. I travelled to Macedonia and Croatia, neither being great games of football and whilst we (Ann travelled as well) managed to avoid trouble the Zagreb trip was marred by over-zealous police presence and a bloody awful England performance. Brightest spot in this England calendar will come after this is written, with England's return to Wembley to play Brazil.

I managed to knock one more ground off the Football League list with the visit to Cheltenham. I made a total of 48 games during the season which is pretty poor and perhaps my mention of falling out of love with the game accounted for the lower than usual total. All I need is a resurgent Gillingham and all such thoughts will be banished.

Lifetime totals: 218 grounds; 1,868 matches.

Pictures: (1) Above: Skopje, Macedonia; (2) Below: Zagreb, Croatia; (3) Stretford End, Old Trafford