Headitorial – March 2008

A Sad State Of Affairs…

Oh my god we’re fucked! Yeah, yeah, I know, we can still stay up but after the Crewe disaster do you really feel in your heart of hearts that we will? Hmm, me neither. Back on the 12th of January 2008 the Gills romped (yup, “romped”) to a splendid 3-1 win at Huddersfield moving up to 15th in the table – the highest of the season and seemingly banishing the nagging concerns regarding who would actually score any goals without the pace, promise and lethal strike rate of Chris Dickson. Dickson got injured during the Bournemouth game and returned to the Valley before Christmas leaving us scratching around for any goals we could cobble together, twice against Forest and Huddersfield we bucked the trend but the signs were there and after the win in West Yorkshire the Gills played thirteen League games, winning one, drawing three (all shite 0-0’s) and losing nine, scoring six goals (four by Crofts, all away, all in defeats) and conceding twenty-four. They then managed just one poxy goal (from a penalty) at home in six games (540 minutes).

Headitorial – December 2007.

Six weeks ago in the Headitorial I wrote “so another mixed month for the Gills, still managerless, still getting results at home and nothing away. Hopefully by the end of November two of those things will have changed”. Well remarkably all three have changed! We won away (hurrah!), lost at home (boo!), acquired a shiny new manager (hurrah!) but perhaps most significantly of all were informed of Scally’s plans to rearrange the £13 million a debt by bafflingly selling Priestfield to himself and leasing it back to GFC (gulp!).

Headitorial – November 2007

This time last month we were still digesting the departure of Ronnie Jepson, a month later and the club remains in limbo. Most Gills fans would probably agree that Scally was right to take his time selecting the next manager, get it wrong and we’ll be in League Two next season, but after several false starts we’re all non the wiser and still stuck in limbo.

Headitorial – October 2007

Well I’ve held off writing this month’s Headitorial in the hope that something, just something positive, nice, or even just not really shite might happen to prevent is being another totally miserable piece on the slow but inevitable decline of Gillingham Football Club

Headitorial – April

Well I suppose you could call in “Mission Accomplished” then… not a vintage campaign by any stretch of the imagination, not even Scally’s own uniquely vivid version of the world could claim that, but assuming we don’t go into administration between now and May 5th we’ll be playing in League One again next season. “Hurrah!” I hear you cry; well scoff if you must, but at least our post-Christmas wobble didn’t turn into a terminal slump. We even managed to win away from home again, keeping a clean sheet into the bargain! A mere 365 days after we kept the previous one at Southend.

Headitorial – February

Feeling sad, feeling down, feeling disillusioned? Well congratulations, you must be a Gills fan then! The fabled 1992-93 side were worse, the 1993-94-95 side were duller, but even back in our darkest days were we never so hamstrung by debt. The elephant in the room remains, it limits everything about our football club, as ever money talks and we’ve been struck dumb, transfer fees are a thing of the past and decent wages to sign quality players nowhere to be seen.

Headitoral – January 2007

I thought I’d wait for the Doncaster Rovers game before writing this Headitorial because I was hoping the Gills would get their season back on track. Unfortunately it simply confirmed what we’ve all suspected for weeks, simply that the current team aren’t very good and even in a poor quality division their only realistic goal left for the season is to avoid relegation.

With nineteen games remaining and the Gills in 15^th spot, six points above the drop zone and now an unrealistic ten points shy of the play-offs the Gills need a further 18 points to reach the magic total of 52 which usually guarantees safety even with our less than healthy goal difference… so the bottom line now is simply one of survival. That thought is hardly going to quicken the pulse of the 6,000 remaining home fans that are gradually losing what little faith they had left in the team. Genuine question marks are also being raised for the first time about Jepson’s ability to turn things around because he has watched defensive howler after defensive howler for six months down and seemingly done feck all about it. The players at his disposal might be third rate but most fans would agree that had Tony Pulis been at the helm they would at least have some semblance of organisation by now…