Gillingham (1) 5 Bentley 12, Jackson 51,85,87, Miller 72
Swindon Town (0) 0
Att. 6,852
Entrance: Season Ticket
Programme: £3
Mileage: 45/399
Match Report
Let’s not get carried away, oh sod it, let’s do exactly that! For two and a half hours we sat top of League One until a result from Carrow Road as incomprehensible as our own saw Colchester sweep to the first day summit.A 12.30 kick off was ordered by the Police in an effort to minimise the potential for trouble between two sets of mindless morons from a bygone day. Sadly the day failed to pass off peacefully with fighting inside and outside the ground.
Thankfully the Swindon element in this sorry tale failed to appear at kick-off time and therefore the minutes’ applause for the late, great Sir Bobby Robson was respectfully observed. When they did appear trouble was not long coming.
Enough of the cavemen.
Mark Stimson surprisingly (at least to me) selected 17-year-old Jack Payne in front of new signing Chris Palmer and opted for Alan Julian as his opening day goalkeeper. The game started brightly and Anthony McNamee, a diminutive winger who has terrorised Gillingham defenders in the past when at Watford, supplied a cross for Jean-Francois to steer a header wide. On 12 minutes the first goal of the League One season arrived and it was Gillingham that chalked it onto the scoreboard. A long cross field pass from John Nutter was taken in his stride by Simeon Jackson, who skipped a defender and slid a pass across goal for Mark Bentley to steer into an empty net.
Swindon recovered well from the setback and had a couple of chances to level the scores. Julian made an excellent save at his near post to foil a Kevin Amankwaah header and McNamee produced another piece of eye-catching footwork and cross for Robbie Paynter to head over.
Five minutes into the second half Gillingham doubled their advantage following another telling pass from Nutter. Jackson timed his run to perfection, coming off the shoulder and outpacing the central defender to rifle past David Lucas.
A hat trick of assists for John Nutter came in the 72nd minute when his free kick was met at the far post by Adam Miller with a header to send the Rainham End into celebratory mode. “We are top of the league, can we play you every week” they taunted the Swindon fans already heading for the exits.
The goal of the match arrived with 5 minutes remaining as Jackson (pictured) doubled his tally with a nutmeg and sweetly curled 20 yarder into the top right hand corner. A finish that Phil Parkinson might like to watch tonight and realise just how absurd his tongue-in-cheek swap offer was.Another goal would bring a suitable revenge for the 5-0 hammering Gillingham took on their last visit to the County Ground and it came within a couple of minutes. Mark Bentley did the donkey work, Simeon Jackson bundled the ball home to complete a memorable opening day hat trick.
Eight years ago, Gillingham had an opening day 5-0 victory over Preston North End, whose custodian on the day was today’s visiting keeper, David Lucas and it has also been eight years since Iffy Onuora hit the last League hat trick for the Gills.
Simeon Jackson will take the headlines but this was a very good team performance. Jack Payne showed a maturity beyond his years and never looked out of place. Josh Gowling, taking on the unenviable task of replacing Simon King, performed admirably alongside Garry Richards and Mark Bentley fully deserved the ovation given on his substitution. If I have to find a criticism, Alan Julian remains less than confident off his line, causing the two central defenders to sit five yards deeper than they should have too. But with five goals and a clean sheet against one of our fiercest rivals this is no time for negativity. We can, and will, get carried away, “we were top of the league, say we were top of the league.”
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