Cheltenham Town (1) 1 Elliott 3
Gillingham (0) 2 McDonald 85, 90
Att. 3,157
Entrance: £14
Programme: £3
Mileage (return journey): 151/8,958
Match Report
With just five minutes remaining, Gills ace marksman Cody McDonald was fetching the ball from the Cheltenham net and racing back to the centre circle. Not for him were the thoughts of relief that a point had been salvaged and the cause of much celebration from the 500-plus Gillingham fans that had made the Sunday journey west.Cody’s urgency was well founded, within three minutes he had the ball in the net again and the recovery was complete and three points were in the bag. It was a thrilling end to the match and put the gloss on our football weekend that had brought two victories without much in the way of inspiration.
Gillingham once again had a very poor first half; they went behind to an early goal from the big Cheltenham captain Steve Elliott and in general failed to come to terms with a difficult, uneven surface. McDonald had a couple of good chances from which he might have done better and overall the visitors were fortunate to go into the dressing room at the end of the first 45 just a goal behind.
After just three minutes, Matt Lawrence showed his displeasure with Alan Julian after being forced to concede a corner by the keeper’s hesitation and it was to prove costly. The resultant corner was woefully cleared by Joe Martin back to the taker, Danny Andrews, whose second cross was knocked in at close range by Elliott.
Following an amazing chain of events Gillingham were lucky not to go further behind on 40 minutes. Julian raced from his penalty area to clear but, under pressure, only managed to find Robins’ striker Jeff Goulding who lobbed the ball towards the unguarded goal. His effort struck a post and the keeper was able to catch the rebound as he sprinted back to his goal, his next task was to avoid carrying the ball over the line as his momentum threatened, this he managed, holding the ball at arms’ length as his torso crossed the line.
Gillingham were a more potent force in the second half. Akinfenwa wasted a close range header early in the half and following the introduction of Danny Spiller and Luke Rooney they made all of the running in the last 20 minutes of the game. There were near misses aplenty before McDonald finally found the net with five minutes remaining. Barry Fuller crossed; McDonald headed against the bar but reacted quickly to net the rebound with a second header.
The joyous 559 that had travelled down from Kent had little time to settle back into their seats before they were celebrating the winning goal. McDonald played Akinfenwa in on goal but he was forced wide only to stand up the perfect cross for Cody to head home. Spark pandemonium, the weekend had been salvaged in the final five minutes but not before Cheltenham’s Marlon Pack produced a heart-stopping moment with a 30 yard effort that smacked against Julian’s right hand post.
No comments:
Post a Comment