Gillingham 2 Bury 1

Match 14/16/1322 - Saturday, 13th August 2016 - League One

Gillingham (1) 2 Jackson 5, Kay (o.g.) 57
Bury (0) 1 Pope 66
Attendance: 5,324

Entrance: Season Ticket
Programme: £3
Mileage: 58/1,593

Match Report

Gillingham's bright start to the season continued with a deserved, but unnecessarily hard fought, victory over Bury. But their misfortune with injuries continued with an injury to loan striker Joe Quigley that is likely to keep him out for the season.

Following on from their opening day success at Southend United, they repeated the feat in Tuesday's League Cup tie, once again at Roots Hall. Jay-Emmanuel Thomas scored another two goals to further embellish his glittering start to life at Gillingham, but as we have all predicted, the inconsistency that has dogged his career surfaced once more with a below-par performance on his Priestfield debut. The trouble with JET is that when things are not clicking for him, his body language tends to tell the story and then he can appear lazy.

Another player, who has a completely different body language, that is enjoying a fruitful opening to the season is Ryan Jackson. Last week, Southend unbelievably succumbed to his long throw and in this game he surged forward to open the scoring after just five minutes. A pass inside the full back from Mark Byrne saw Jackson ride a challenge before slotting the ball underneath the body of the advancing goalkeeper.

An old Gillingham trait of going into their shell after a goal quickly surfaced thereafter and one of the Gillingham fans favourite pantomime villains, Tom Pope was at the forefront of the majority of Bury's attacking intentions.

Jackson was proving to be Gillingham's best attacking outlet and a cynical foul on him brought a yellow for Hallam Hope.

Four minutes prior to the break, Emmanuel Osadebe thumped a header against the bar from a pin-point Konchesky cross, from the rebound Wright powered in a shot that was superbly turned to safety by Ben Williams.

Into the second half and Gillingham doubled their advantage after 58 minutes with Jackson once more the catalyst. The full back cantered into acres of space down the right hand side and powered in a cross-cum-shot that took an unfortunate deflection off Antony Kay to wrong foot the goalkeeper. The goal was initially credited to Jackson, but he will be lucky to keep it.

The game was set for Gillingham to power on to a substantial win with Osadebe, in particular, pulling all the strings in midfield. But, once again they retreated and offered the visitors a way back into the game which they accepted with a considerable amount of time (24 minutes) left on the clock. Tom Soares crossed low and to the far post where Pope was lurking to slide the ball home. The pantomime villain once again having the last laugh.

Bury continued to threaten and when six added minutes was announced there was some nervous times for the Gillingham support. Unfortunately, the time added was time enough for Quigley to sustain his injury in the most innocuous of fashions without a challenge.