Walsall 3 Gillingham 2

Match 38/15/1243 - Saturday, 31st October 2015 - League One

Walsall (2) 3 Morris 37, Lalkovic 38, Demetriou 90
Gillingham (2) 2 McDonald 12, Dack 32 (pen)
Attendance: 6,663

Entrance: £14.50 Senior
Programme: £3
Mileage: 380/2,629

Match Report

If I had been watching this game as a neutral, I would have walked away thinking, "what a great game of football". I wasn't a neutral, my team lost, and I walked away thinking "what a great game of football."

If Mystic Meg had trundled down to William Hill’s back in August and asked for odds on Walsall and Gillingham contesting first and second places in the table come the last day of October, then, even if they recognised the power of her crystal ball they would have been scratching their heads to give her long enough odds.

To say that Walsall, whether in their previous home of Fellows Park or their present residence at the Bescott Stadium, is not a happy hunting ground for Gillingham is something of an understatement. No wins there since 1992 and the previous victory to that was back in 1985 and no Gillingham team has scored more than once since 1990 and they still didn’t win that day having scored three times!

Personally, I hadn’t even seen a decent game in my four or five visits; at least that changed this visit.

The opening exchanges highlighted, for the mass of nearly 700 Gillingham supporters particularly, the return to form of Bradley Dack and his continual want to be at the centre of the action. His early free kick was fired over and when he won a tussle deep in his own half his pass to Doug Loft led to the opening goal after 12 minutes. Loft then threaded a beautifully weighted pass into the path of Cody McDonald, who under pressure from a retreating defender slid the ball past the advancing goalkeeper, Neil Etheridge, and into the bottom corner.

After 31 minutes, Dack wriggled his way along the bye-line until he drew a clumsy challenge from Paul Downing to which referee Darren Drysdale pointed to the spot. Dack, brimful of confidence, sent Etheridge to his right and the ball to his left to bring a few misguided Easy, Easy chants from some of the Gillingham faithful (young people who hadn’t endured years of misery at Walsall, it might be guessed).

My own thoughts were, get through to half-time and this game is as good as won. But in the space of 90 seconds, my hopes were dashed and the easy chants were rammed firmly back down throats as two defensive errors wiped out the advantage.

Stuart Nelson might question himself as a shot from 25 yards from Kieron Morris found the bottom corner between the goalkeeper and his near post after 36 minutes and Walsall were level almost directly from the restart. A cross from George Evans was over hit and as the ball landed at the feet of Ryan Jackson, the defender dithered for the moment needed for Milan Lalkovic to poke out a foot and direct the ball past Nelson.

If the first half was pulsating with goals, the second was the same without. Neither team was willing to give an inch and the tackles were hard and not always fair as Mr Drysdale started flourishing his yellow card with regularity.

Both teams had periods of dominance but it appeared that Gillingham were finishing the strongest, before in the first minute of time added, Walsall's Rico Henry created some space on the left hand bye-line to deliver a cross that looped into the air via a deflection towards the centre of the goal. Jordan Cook attempted a overhead kick that only found its way to the angle of the six yard box from where Jason Demetriou volleyed home.

It is always said that what goes around, comes around and having benefitted from late goals in their previous three games it was Gillingham's turn to take one on the chin.

And so it was the "we are top of the league" chant passed from one end of the Bescott to the other. That the baton was able to be passed is a credit to both clubs as was the match, a wonderful advertisement for League One.