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Gillingham Football Club
After five seasons
in the Championship, Gillingham's fate was to be relegated on goal
difference, with just one goal separating the team from Crewe
Alexandra. New boss Stan Ternent had taken over in December 2004,
with the Gills languishing second from bottom and led a recovery
that included just one defeat in the last 12 games. The draw on the
final day of the 2004/05 season with Nottingham
Forest was not sufficient for a miracle recovery and Ternent left
the club a week later.
2005/06 found the Gills with new manager, Neale
Cooper, who lasted only until 15 November. He left his deputy,
Ronnie Jepson, a team full of new faces struggling to find
consistent form in League 1. The team went quickly out of all the
main cup competitions and struggled against the threat of
administration but a run of six consecutive victories in March and
April meant the club secured its League One status by Easter
Monday.
2006/07 started with a home win but the next
few games had the fans worrying that they might face yet another
battle to avoid relegation. By the end of September, however, the
Gills had clawed their way to a respectable mid-table position,
despite struggling to hold on to a lead in most games and not yet
keeping a clean sheet. Although victories were hard to come by in
October, supporters were cheered by some good results in November
and the Gills ended the month in 10th place, just four points from
the play-off zone. The trend continued through December, with the
hectic Christmas and New Year programme bringing two dramatic
fightbacks and two thumping defeats - six points out of 12. January
gave the fans little to cheer until the last game of the month,
when a solid 2-0 home win gave them a rare double over Tranmere and
lifted the Gills to 12th place. February was a time of missed
opportunities. With the attack unable to score more than a goal a
game at best and a home defeat against local rivals Brighton, the
distance to the relegation zone was down to five points by the end
of the month. March brought no respite, with victories and goals
still hard to come by. A disastrous trip to Carlisle left the Gills
still in 19th place and just six points clear of trouble. The next
month was a different story. With only one defeat in the first
three games, safety was assured by 14 April. Gills remained
unbeaten until the last game of the season, when a dismal 2-0 home
defeat by Yeovil made it easier for Ronnie Jepson to announce his
retained list the following Tuesday.
2007/08 began with more speculation about plans
for relocation to a new ground in Medway or Gravesham and some new
faces replacing old favourites but with only one win from the first
six games, manager Ronnie Jepson soon realised there was more to it
than luck and tendered his resignation on 9 September, which was
duly accepted by the chairman. After almost eight weeks of feverish
speculation about his successor, during which caretaker managers
Iffy Onuora and Mick Docherty struggled for consistency, Mark
Stimson left non-league Stevenage to take control on 1
November.
Although Gills went went four league matches without defeat from
the weekend before he arrived, the late surrender of a one-goal
lead in the FA Cup at Barnet showed the new boss there is still
much to be done. Good home form saw the club climb to 16th in
League One by mid-December, despite slipping up against bottom of
the league Port Vale. Off the pitch, Chairman Paul Scally announced
a deal to sell Priestfield Stadium and lease it back to improve the
club's trading position and position it for the move to a new
stadium.
Christmas and New Year brought a memorable win against promotion
contenders Nottingham Forest and two hard-fought draws but penalty
shoot-out misery soon followed at Priestfield, as MK Dons took
their chance to move towards a Johnson's Paint Wembley final. The
gloom deepened around Priestfield after a rare double over
Huddersfield (3-1 away, 1-0 at home) was followed by four games
without a win and a place in the relegation zone.
With just four games to go to the end of the season, vital
victories were snatched from the Gills in two successive away games
by late, first-time, long-range volleys, both struck by central
defenders. These disappointments were only exceeded by the misery
of hosting Swansea City's promotion party, having thrown away
another one goal lead and all the points.
If Gillingham has an "old enemy", it must be Swindon. Gills
could have made survival that little bit easier by beating them in
the last home game of the season but threw away another one goal
lead just two minutes away from full time. Now they just needed to
beat Leeds at Elland Road while Bournemouth failed to win at
Carlisle and hope Cheltenham would oblige by losing at home to
Doncaster Rovers.
While Gills took an early lead, they remained true to form and
could not hold out beyond the 70th minute, eventually losing 2-1
and ensuring relegation for the second time in four seasons.
2008/09 saw Gillingham back where they were at
the start of the Scally revolution. After a stuttering start,
including a 7-0 defeat at Shrewsbury, the worst for 47 years, and
an early exit from the Johnson's Paint Trophy, the Gills ended the
goal drought in style, with a 5-0 home win in the first-ever
fixture with Morecambe. There followed a sequence of 13 matches
with only two defeats to maintain ninth place in the League 2 table
and perhaps even better, bring Premiership Aston Villa to
Priestfield in the third round of the FA Cup. Despite taking the
fight to Villa right from the kick-off and scoring the best goal of
the game to equalise after an hour's play, the capacity crowd and a
nation of television football fans saw the Gills eventually lose,
as the fourth-best team in England scraped through with a fortunate
penalty.
The lads soon shook of any disappointment and lost just one
league game in January, with three consecutive away wins getting
them to fourth place in the table. League 2 is a competitive place,
however, and two defeats followed, leaving them back in 10th place
but still just three points from the play-off zone. For the rest of
February and into March, a seven-match unbeaten run saw the Gills
into sixth place and only kept out of the automatic promotion
places by the worst goal difference in the top nine. Fans of a
nervous disposition may like to note that Simeon Jackson's
last-minute penalty against Darlington on 10 March made the club
safe from relegation.
With two league games left, Gills had a guaranteed place in the
play-offs, though hope of automatic promotion ended with a goalless
draw at home to Bury. Having beaten Rochdale away by the only goal
in the last league game of the season and achieved a creditable 0-0
draw against them again in the first leg of the play-off semi-final
on 7 May, they knew they had to beat them once more at home on
Sunday, 10 May to win their third visit to Wembley for a play-off
final. This they duly did, thanks to two more goals from that man
Jackson again.
Now they faced their September nemesis, Shrewsb
ury, at Wembley on Saturday, 23 May. More than 30,000 fans
travelled to the new national stadium to watch their heroes
dominate the first half only to be defied by some resolute
goalkeeping. As the starting 11 tired in the second half and the
Shrewsbury substitutes came into the game, many in the blue and
white majority could see extra time beckoning but Simeon Jackson
thought otherwise. His far-post header from Josh Wright's disputed
corner found the net right on full-time (pictured left, with thanks
to the BBC for the photo) and the fans went wild. With keeper Simon
Royce tipping aside the Shrews' last-gasp attempt to equalise,
collecting some bruised ribs in the process, the final whistle soon
followed and the party began and carried right on to the victory
parade back in Medway on Monday.
2009/10 kicked off at Priestfield in the
blazing August sun with a 5-0 demolition of a Swindon Town team
that seemed to have left its competitive spirit somewhere on a
holiday beach.
Jackson took full advantage, creating the first goal and
claiming a spectacular second half hat-trick. It might even have
been enough to make up for Gills supporters' own brand of 30 years
of hurt (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Westwood)
but not enough to put Gills top of the League One table for more
than a few hours, as Colchester United trounced Norwich City 7-1
away.
Although the next thing they did was to dump Plymouth Argyle of
the Championship out of the Carling Cup, August turned into a
disaster for the Gills, with four straight defeats. Penalty
shoot-out success kept them in the Johnson's Paint Trophy until the
home defeat by Norwich City in October but solid home performances
after that have been more than cancelled out by terrible away form.
By mid-November, Gills had slumped to 19th place in the table,
although fans were cheered by early success in the FA Cup and the
promise of another home tie, this time against Burton Albion at the
end of the month. The reward for a hard-fought 1-0 victory turned
out to be possibly the worst draw in the Third Round - Accrington
Stanley away. While away form seems to be the big problem this
season, keeping the Gills in 17th place in the league as they
entered 2010, the weather was another, delaying the trip to
Accrington until 19 January. There, all too predictably, they
failed to secure the glittering prize - a home tie against Fulham -
by their inability, yet again, to convert chances into goals on a
foreign field.
By mid-March, the lads had won only twice in their last 15
games, a worse record than the two wins in 13 that cost the Bristol
City manager his job. Fans were braced for a good old-fashioned
relegation battle, with the team back in 19th place, no games in
hand and needing another 20 or so points for safety.
Despite a rousing 2-1 victory against Southampton in the last
home game of the season, Gills were still not safe. They needed
just one point from their last game, against already relegated
Wycombe Wanderers, to be sure of survival, with rivals Tranmere
Rovers and Exeter City both needing to win theirs. Although Gills
had never won away all season, they had drawn on their travels six
times. As it turned out, even a draw was beyond them. They lost in
3-0 in abject style and when Exeter City's Ryan Harley volleyed a
winner eight minutes from time against Huddersfield Town, they were
down. By lunchtime the following Monday, manager Mark Stimson was
gone.
2010/11
With the fans' favourite Andy Hessenthaler back for a second
spell as manager, the spirit at the club was far better than you
might have expected as the season kicked off. After a disastrous
August, with no league victories and speedy exits from two cup
competitions, surely things could only get better. September
started with four away goals but still no win, as Hessy's nine-goal
"nightmare" left him pondering how to beat table-topping Shrewsbury
the following weekend.
By mid-November, a siege mentality had settled over Priestfield,
with everyone from Chairman Paul Scally down under strict orders to
say no more than necessary to the media about a period of just
three wins in 12 games, including a 7-4 defeat at Accrington
Stanley and an ignominious FA Cup exit at home to Dover Athletic.
With Gills in 22nd place and trips to fellow-strugglers Oxford
United and Barnet to round off the month, there was never been a
better time to start winning away again and they did just that on
20 November, with just one precious goal from Cody McDonald. After
a record 35 away games without a win, Andy Hessenthaler was able to
say "We've got the monkey off our backs." The following Tuesday
night, the lads came back from a goal down at half-time to add
to former boss Stimson's woes by winning 2-1 at Barnet. Even
the snow couldn't stop the Gills and by mid-December, a 4-2
drubbing of Macclesfield, away again, had lifted them to 13th
place.
Now there was no stopping the Gills. The next five matches saw
them lose only once and by mid-January they were in the play-off
zone and Andy Hessenthaler had been named Manager of the Month.
Nevertheless, a rain-soaked Priestfield saw an inventive
display from the home side come to nothing on Tuesday, 25 January,
as top of the table Chesterfield pegged the Gills back to ninth
place with two slick goals against the run of play. When Hessy
said his lads could bounce back, most fans agreed with him and
they were proved right. A seven-match unbeaten run, including an
impressive 3-1 defeat of high-flying Rotherham, kept them in
seventh place by the end of February.
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