Chatham Town 1 Gillingham 0

Match 6/26/2434 - Friday, 24th July 2026 - Pre-Season Friendly

Chatham Town (1) 1 Giles 31
Gillingham (0) 0
Estimated Attendance: 1,200
Admission: £5
Mileage: 34/260

LOAN WATCH

A Friday evening at Chatham Town brought the opportunity to see Scott Wagstaff’s Gillingham youngsters and muse on what he might be able to send the way of Tonbridge Angels. Waggy is now in charge of the Under-18’s at Priestfield and the team was a mixture of first and second year scholars.

An entire team change for Gillingham on the hour brought a much younger set into the action and, consequently, the game lost a bit of its competitive edge of the opening hour.

Of the Gillingham lads starting, the obvious stand-out is Sully Booth and, one would hazard a guess, that he is not going to be loaned out anywhere this coming season and is destined for a season in and around the senior team, he really is an exciting talent.

I was interested to watch Damian Theodore, who had shown up well in last season’s Kent Senior Cup tie at Longmead. He had a sparkling run and shot early in the game but was largely kept quiet by a strong Chatham defence.

Logan Dobbs, who had a loan spell that didn’t quite work out for a number of reasons at Tonbridge last season, handled a physical duo in Jimmy Wild and Stanley Oldfield really quite well and, if he was to be loaned and we needed a central defender, would fit the bill with a bit better luck than last time. But, my inclination is that he is another that might feature with the senior team.

Chatham opened the scoring, and ultimately won the game, with a 35 yard shot from Alex Giles that deceived Gills goalkeeper Benji Spencer.

Among the last 30 minute entrances was Josh Stone, son of Craig, who many would remember taking part in the warm-ups at Tonbridge when he was probably around five years old. These days, he is a tall central defender who coped with a hefty centre forward competently.

An estimated crowd well clear of four figures only reinforces the depth of support for Gillingham in the Medway area and beyond. This was never dressed up as a Gillingham first team fixture, everybody knew what they were getting but still there was a massive turnout from the Gills fans. All they need is a whiff of better times to come and they will be packing out Priestfield.

A thought drifted towards the heavens at kick-off time in memory of Paul Rodgers, who died unexpectedly in April. I knew Paul from a young age when he would travel on the Gillingham Travel Club coach before becoming disenchanted with the Scally regime and throwing his support behind Chatham Town and Punjab United. Paul was a character shall we say, with his passion extending beyond football with Madness and the comic Viz. Rest easy Paul.