Gillingham 1 Cheltenham Town 1

Match 07/10/823 - Saturday, 7th August 2010 - League Two

Gillingham (0) 1 Akinfenwa 75
Cheltenham Town (0) 1 Thomas 53
Att. 5,655

Entrance: Season Ticket
Programme: £3
Mileage: 45/320

Match Report

They came in sizeable numbers to welcome back the small man that is a Gillingham legend, they left singing the praises of the big man, who could become a cult hero at Priestfield Stadium.

Andy Hessenthaler walked the touchline at 3 o’clock to rapturous applause from a support that has been reunited by his appointment and whilst, two hours later, the result might not have been the perfect end to the day, the performance offered positive encouragement for the coming months.

A Cheltenham side that offered far more than their previous season’s lowly finish would have expected, played their part in a highly entertaining first day encounter.

First day nerves played their part as the new-look Gillingham side back in their popular blue and black stripes struggled to find their feet in the opening stages but once Andy Barcham realised he had the beating of his full back the chances started to fall to the hosts. He created an opportunity for Curtis Weston that the midfielder shot over and had a couple of chances of his own, one of which might have brought a penalty.

Young 18-year-old debutant, Stefan Payne was asked to lead the attack as a lone striker and his inexperience led to him wanting a touch to many to create the perfect shooting opportunity but he did more than enough to foster the believe that Hessenthaler may have unearthed a prospective talent.

In midfield, Danny Spiller produced a performance of high energy and endeavour. Now 29, Spiller has a five-month contract in which to convince the man he once played alongside that he is worthy of a longer term and his near man-of-the-match display showed a willingness to earn it.

Cheltenham, who had barely threatened the Gillingham goal in the first half, opened the scoring eight minutes into the second half. Despite having an early chance in the second half, the goal came from such an innocuous situation that it took the home crowd by surprise. A free kick from Keith Lowe found Wes Thomas who poked home from close range despite the attention of Josh Gowling, who otherwise had a very solid game.

Gone were the dithering substitutions of Mark Stimson's reign as Hessenthaler immediately introduced Adebayo Akinfenwa into the action. Nicknamed “The Fridge” by Millwall fans during his spell at The Den, after the legendary William Perry of the Chicago Bears, the Gillingham supporters have adopted the label “The Tank”, and what a first impression he made.

For such a big man, his touch is remarkably deft. Within two minutes he had produced an overhead kick into the goalkeepers welcoming arms that belied his physicality. His hold-up play was excellent, winning and laying off passes as Gillingham searched for an equaliser that deservedly arrived with 15 minutes remaining.

A long throw-in from Jack Payne found Akinfenwa at the near post and his flicked header took a deflection to nestle into the far corner of the net. It wasn’t a classic goal but Bayo held an arm aloft, was engulfed by his team mates and carried on walking towards the centre circle!

Gillingham sensed a winner but chances for Luke Rooney, Tony Sinclair and Andy Barcham failed to deliver the three points.

Despite the result, the referee’s final whistle brought a positive response from the Gillingham faithful. Overall they must have been pleased with what they had seen. An outstanding performance from 18-year-old Jack Payne, a performance from Danny Spiller in the image of his boss and, then there was Akinfenwa, the big man that took the first steps and the first goal towards cult hero status.

Season Preview 2010

Optimism – has to be the buzz word for this season’s preview.

Gillingham should never have found themselves back in League Two, but they have, and now the task falls to Andy Hessenthaler to drag the club back to League One and beyond, preferably at the first attempt.

If Hessenthaler was brought in to galvanise support following the divisive Stimson reign then that part of the mission is complete. But the affection in which he is held will only last for a limited period if results are not forthcoming from the outset.

The loss of Simeon Jackson has been compensated with the signings of Cody McDonald and the giant Adebayo Akinfenwa. 20-goal Jackson is going to be a tough act to follow, but Akinfenwa scored 17 last term at Northampton and with regular football it is to be hoped that McDonald can find the scoring touch that led to Norwich taking him from non-league Dartford.

Some interesting signings have been made with Stanley Aborah, one time of Ajax, on a month-to-month contract to prove his worth and Danny Spiller returns to the club with a contract to Christmas that he would hope to be extended.

This is never an easy Division to judge other clubs strengths as the vast majority of signings are not household names, but without saying Gillingham have done fantastic business, nobody else appears to have done either. The nucleus of the squad that really should have been good enough last term remain and hopefully have a point to prove.

Away form is key and let’s face it anything is going to be an improvement on last season. An early win will get the monkey off our back and if the home form remains strong it is not going to take a wonderful away record to be among the front runners.

My guess for fellow contenders are last year’s beaten play-off finalists Rotherham, Peter Taylor’s Bradford and probably Wycombe, relegated alongside Gillingham last season despite a strong finish.

But my optimistic forecast is that for the first time in 36 years supporting the club, I will have a Divisional Championship to celebrate.

Tonbridge manager Tommy Warrilow appears to have made some very astute signings and optimism at Longmead, never easy to contain, is very high. Players like Frannie Collin, from Dover, would not at first glance be thought of as on the radar of Tonbridge, but he has arrived with Lee Browning and Danny Walder from the Crabble.

The budget at Tonbridge has been a major worry and Warrilow has been insistent that he has kept within his figures despite several other high profile signings. Non-league championships do tend to go to where the money is spent and a rough guess would be that Tonbridge are not the biggest spenders. It is about time Sutton departed the Ryman Premier, Lowestoft have massive support so they should be well funded and I’m guessing that the likes of Kingstonian and Carshalton are not going to be far off the pack.

But once again it is time to be optimistic and I would be disappointed at less than a play-off place.

England begin a new qualifying campaign following the World Cup debacle. It is going to be interesting to see how Fabio Capello reshapes the squad that failed the nation in South Africa and to see the reaction of Joe Public towards those failures. Capello needs a good start against Switzerland in Basle, that will not be easy and Bulgaria at Wembley. He needs six points from those games merely to retain the level of support he has.

League Two offers a two of the four grounds needed to complete the 92 club, Hereford United and Burton Albion and there are also new stadiums for Chesterfield and Morecambe.

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

Croydon Athletic 0 Gillingham 0

Match 06/10/822 - Saturday, 31st July 2010 - Pre-Season Friendly

Croydon Athletic (0) 0
Gillingham (0) 0
Att. 343
Played at Bourne Park, Sittingbourne

Entrance: £8
Programme: Not Published
Mileage: 44/275

Match Report

The best thing about this pre-season friendly was the final whistle and the knowledge that the next posting into That'll Be The Day will be that of competitive football.

A weakened Gillingham side, there was the best part of an eleven sitting behind me in the main stand, and a poor playing surface didn't lend itself to a fluid performance. The state of the pitch was somewhat ironic, as the match was moved to Bourne Park because Croydon's pitch was not fit for use.

Andy White might have opened the scoring in the first minute when his deft chip only just cleared the bar before having to depart with a hamstring injury midway through the half.

It would have been a good story to report that the ex-Ajax player, Stanley Aborah has done enough to earn a contract at Priestfield, but sadly I don't think that will be the case. He has some classy touches, but too much of a liability in the rough and tumble of England's lowest tier.

Garry Richards made a welcome return for the last 15 minutes replacing the excellent Connor Essam and a 10 minute cameo from Andy Barcham at least enlivened the finish.

It was left to Adebayo Akinfenwa to, once again, supply the laugh from his second half appearance. On giving away a free kick, he was heard to exclaim to the referee, "he bounced off me", I think there might be a few more bouncing in the coming weeks!

Gillingham 1 Heart of Midlothian 2

Match 05/10/821 - Thursday, 29th July 2010 - Pre-Season Friendly

Gillingham (0) 1 Rooney 49 (pen)
Heart of Midlothian (0) 2 Novikovas 52, Bouzid 84
Att. 2,359

Entrance: £12.50
Programme: £2
Mileage: 45/231

Match Report

Gillingham acquited themselves well in their marquee friendly against Scottish Premier League Hearts. I cannot remember Gillingham having Scottish opponents before, although when the visitors team sheet was read out they didn't exactly sound celtic. I might be wrong, but I guess Gillingham managed to piggy-back this fixture by virtue of Hearts providing the opposition for Millwall in Neil Harris' testimonial on Saturday.

The home side had the best of the first half, Barcham stretched the Hearts defence on several occasions and might well have earned a penalty when brought down and Stefan Payne had a one-on-one opportunity from which he might have done better. The closest Gillingham got to gaining a first half lead came when Hearts' Darren Barr was forced to clear off his line following a deflection by one of his own players.

The second half started briskly and Payne earned a penalty when brought down by Bouzid. Luke Rooney grabbed the ball and nobody was going to stop him from taking the penalty that he duly converted.

Unfortunately the lead failed to last three minutes. A fine through ball cut open the Gillingham defence and Arvydas Novikovas cooly finished.

With 25 minutes remaining the home fans were treated to their first look at new signing Adebayo Akinfenwa, and a big boy he certainly is. Presently weighing in at a touch over 17 stone, he has to be the fattest outfield player I've ever seen. Not according to Hess though, it is muscle.

His size supplied the hilarious moment of the night, outside of a congested penalty area the ball ran loose to Rooney who shot for goal, only to see it rebound off Akinfenwa's backside, let's face it, it was impossible for Rooney to miss!

Back to the game and Gillingham were denied a draw against their illustrious opponents when Ismael Bouzid powered an unchallenged header past substitute goalkeeper Lance Cronin with just six minutes remaining to the delight of a sizeable Scottish following in the Gordon Road Stand.

A worthwhile run out that gives Andy Hessenthaler plenty of options leading up to the League opener and we will never forget our first sighting of Adebayo!

Tonbridge 0 Eastbourne Borough 2

Match 04/10/820 - Saturday, 24th July 2010 - Pre-Season Friendly

Tonbridge (0) 0
Eastbourne Borough (1) 2 Crabb, N 69, Crabb, M 80
Att. 240

Entrance: £8
Programme: £1
Mileage: 26/186

It might seem somewhat lazy to admit to arriving at Tonbridge for this pre-season friendly by virtue of overlaying for a 2.30 p.m. kick-off at Ebbsfleet, but such is the lot of a night shift worker.

I'm presently composing this posting on a mobile phone due to burglary at home robbing me of both my computers, it really has been one of those weeks.

Conference side Eastbourne Borough ran out fairly comfortable winners but not before the home side had given a good account of themselves for the second successive week against opposition of higher status.

The much travelled Richard Paquette caught the eye in the first half but he was wasteful in front of goal when given a gilt-edged opportunity that Worgan saved comfortably.

The second half was going much the same way as the first until Eastbourne made eight changes after an hour. Ten minutes later, Eastbourne took the lead when Nathan Crabb converted a defence splitting through ball and the game was tied up ten minutes from time when the second of the Crabb brothers, Matt fastened onto a terrible pass across the face of his own goal from teenager Paul Semeluka.

Performances are very encouraging at Longmead, but the worry persists that there is a lack of a cutting edge up front.

Tonbridge 0 Brentford 0

Match 03/10/819 - Saturday, 17th July 2010 - Pre-Season Friendly

Tonbridge (0) 0
Brentford (0) 0
Att. 486

Entrance: £10
Programme: £2
Mileage: 26/158

Match Report

League One Brentford arrived at Longmead courtesy of Leon Legge’s transfer to the West London side last summer. Legge has emerged as a real success story at Griffin Park, making 33 League appearances in his first season which culminated with the award of player of the year.

Brentford paid Tonbridge the compliment of bringing their first string side which produced a strong end to last season which saw them finishing in the top half of the division. There were some familiar faces amongst them, the Gillingham Judas Nicky Forster, ex-Dartford hitman Charlie MacDonald, while Legge himself made an appearance from the bench as a 66th minute substitute.

Tonbridge can be hugely encouraged by their performance. Such has been the turnaround of players the first half was spent largely trying to work out who was who. This process could be made so much easier if the tannoy announcers were to ditch the bizarre method of reading out the team sheet in alphabetical order.

Tommy Warrilow has made some impressive captures during the close season and all within the playing budget we are assured. I can remember my surprise at Frannie Collin being released by Dover at the end of last season; never did I imagine he would turn up at Tonbridge. Danny Walder and Lee Browning have followed Collin from the Crabble, whilst Jacob Mingle and Jake Beecroft have arrived from clubs of higher status.

Brentford with obvious advantages of quality and superior fitness stretched the home side’s defence to the limit during a fairly one-sided first half. Myles Weston, who gave Gillingham the run around back in February, exercised Walder with a difficult 45 minutes, but credit the full back who stuck to his task especially as it was later revealed that he is recovering from tonsillitis. Seb Barton, standing in for Lee Worgan in goal, was forced to make just a couple of decent saves as Peter Hawkins and Liam Harwood stood firm in the centre of the defence.

Tonbridge made a better fist of the second half in terms of an attacking force and their best chance of the game fell to Harwood who headed over from a Beecroft cross. Charlie MacDonald hit a post for the Bees, but the home side were good value for their creditable draw.

A fairly long pre-season ensures there is plenty of time and matches for this new-look Tonbridge to gel into a side that is going to justify its position among the favourites with the bookies and as a first step this was very encouraging.