Sunday 25 October 2009

Gills 'Cup Final' Ends in Stalemate


The journey out to Gillingham was easy peasy.

 The train from Charlton only takes around an hour, passing through some areas that would never be included in tourist brochures promoting the 'Garden of Kent'.

The train driver had very thoughtfully stopped to pick up Sledge at Greenhithe station. It was he who commented that visiting Gillingham felt like visiting a 'Northern town'.

The promised torrential rain never really materialised. In my opinion, it would have been rather uncomfortable to spend an hour standing in the drizzle, nursing pint glasses before heading to the ground.

 Many people chose the drizzle option but we found a bar with large leather sofas and a wide screen TV showing the midlands (proper) derby between Villa and Wolves.
The owners of the bar obviously rate cleanliness next to godliness as the drinking area and especially the toilets absolutely reeked of bleach. It was like visiting your local swimming baths, only without the crusty sock on the floor in the corner.

Priestfield is like an upmarket Welling. The open air terrace / golf style seating for the away supporters was 'functional' but hardly worth the £23. The last time I felt quite so fleeced for appalling facilities was at Selhurst Park.
Simon Jordan = Paul Scally?

The home supporters were really up for this game. It was their 'Cup Final' and the Priestfield was full. Despite the Charlton chants of "No noise from the Pikey boys", Gillingham were really getting behind their team.
 Perhaps it was the excellent choice of pre match music played over the tannoy that hyped them up.
Most of what the Addick fans shouted was lost in the strong wind anyway.

Early on, it would appear that Izale McLeod was denied a cast iron, nailed on (etc etc) penalty. In all honesty, it was far too far away for me to comment. At the time, I just assumed it was another case of McLeod having a lie down when he got into the penalty area. Independent reports, even those biased towards the Gills, would indicate a penalty should have been awarded.

The referee, Jon Moss, (who will always be the drummer for Culture Club to eighties kids like me), wasn't really up to the task. It was yet another case of third division refereeing to go with the third division football.
Moss needed to get a grip on the game early on.
He didn't.
His big moment came when he removed a beachball from the pitch with a rather theatrical flourish.

With the Gills anxious to show who was boss, some very meaty challenges were made. Some would have been given instant yellow cards on another day but Moss just waved play on.
The Charlton players got stuck in too and there were some uncontrolled tackles from both teams.
What looked like Racon made a poor challenge which went unpunished so the Gills decided to take it out on Nicky Bailey a few seconds later.
Bailey received an appalling tackle that could have removed him from any more involvement in the afternoon's encounter. Deon Burton was duly booked for pointing out the ref's ineptitude.

Local boy Rob Elliot made a fine save but the first half was dull, dull, dull.

The bad ref, bad pitch and swirling wind in damp, skiddy conditions meant neither team could play a passing game.
 The highlight of the first half, or at least a rare glimmer of excitement, was when some yellow bibbed bullies over reacted to some Charlton youngsters in the home area and caused an almighty ruck when there was no need to do anything.
I sent an email to Dr Kish reporting what I saw, reproduced here. (Though I promise I did include some punctuation when I sent it!)

The second half was much like the first. I found my mind wandering and I really wasn't fully engaged.

 I began to contemplate what job the spotty, large chinned youth was doing inside the building directly to our left. He really wasn't doing much. He spent most of the afternoon leaning on the window, watching the game.

With only around 10 minutes to go, the game came alive. Mooney replaced McLeod and began running at everything.
I'm still not sure how it happened but the Gills player Nutter, somehow managed to slice the ball, unchallenged, into his own net. It was directly in front of the away support leading to equal amounts of cheering and laughing.
If Danny Baker was to do another compilation of his 'howlers', Nutter would be one of his unlucky highlights.

The chinny, spotty youth was aghast.
His face contorted, he gave the Charlton support, (who were only around 6 feet away) the finger and then pulled down the blinds on the window in disgust.

Despite everything I saw on Harry Hill's show last night, the spotty youth remains the funniest part of my Saturday.

We began to believe three points were ours for the taking.
A Charlton team who really hadn't got to grips with the conditions or received a fair rub of the green from the officials were ahead due to a massive 'slice' of good fortune.

It wasn't to last of course.
Rob Elliot had already managed a miracle save from Nutter but he could do nothing about the effort from Gills hotshot Jackson.
Without the benefit of a replay, I can't be sure, but it seemed as if he performed a very skillful flick to make space to shoot.
The Priestfield went wild with lots of waving / pointing directed towards a section high up in the main stand where the boxes are. I imagine some posh seat Addicks had given it large after our goal and were now paying the price!

A win would have been nice but a draw was a fair result. On the evidence of yesterday, we still have a problem closing out games.
Gillingham are not a great side. Unfortunately, we plummeted to their levels yesterday. It could have been down to conditions but our midfield never commanded the game. Our 'key' players should have ran rings around the Gills but yesterday our players didn't look comfortable.

One good thing about aiming for promotion is that hopefully we won't have to come back to god awful places like Priestfield again for a while.
Gillingham can then return to being the refuge of Addicks who didn't quite make the grade.

The walk back to the station was speedy, even including the fact you have to slalom around the piles of dog poo.

We returned to London on a 'Football Special'.
I thought they died out in the 80's?

Casual Rating
I'm really struggling to award the Lacoste polo shirt this week. After some quiet moments, I've decided to award it jointly to Kelly Youga and Rob Elliot as they were the only Charlton players who had a remotely good game.

The Primark novelty slogan tee shirt goes to the bullies who picked on some kids who unfortunately chose to support the 'wrong' team.
If the bright yellow clad hoolies had behaved in the same way while the kids were sitting waiting for a bus, it would have rightly been labelled an assault.
Gillingham should be ashamed of themselves.
I guess it's only to be expected from a club with Millwall fan Scally at the top.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

We were poor. Gillingham were up for it and we weren't. We were convinced our better players would take them apart but the weather and poor pitch denied any 'football' being played.
What a Sh*thole.

Anonymous said...

More Charlton so called big club crap.
You didnt plummet to our stndards we outplayed you al over the pitchh.
You where lucky not to loose you mugs.

Gills And Proud.

Marco. said...

GAP
I agree. We were possibly lucky not to lose. Yesterday's game was just the kind of fixture we would have lost last season.
We have suffered 2 relegations in 3 years. We are now meeting unfancied teams that weren't even on our radar only 2 calendar years ago. If that makes us a 'big club' then so be it.
I'd say we have had an awful 3 years but now look to be getting a few things right on the pitch.
Things didn't go as planned yesterday for us while you obviously raised yourselves, perceiving it a 'big' game.
There won't be many Charlton supporters who want to stay in League 1 so saying we want to leave it behind is hardly rocking the boat.

One more thing, any chance of using a spell check? ; )

Anonymous said...

GAP - quality response mate. Is loose mugs serious?

Pembury Addick

James said...

Hi Marco
Great match report as ever, but I have to disagree with one part.

By far the funniest part of the match was the anti-racism poem recited at half time. The one that described racist comments as "like lightning from the sky hitting the players in their silky shirts hearts and turning them to ash"

Stupidly I didn't buy the match programme in which it was printed because I didn't think the 2 pages on Charlton would warrant my last £3. I'm regretting that decision now!

Marco. said...

I'd forgotten the poem!
It was a little tedious wasn't it?
Great sentiment but the young lad who wrote it had obviously been taught adjectives and adverbs that week and then tried to use 5 of each in every sentence.
At least it shows there are some literacy skills being taught in Gillingham, despite the evidence of G.A.P above.

Ketts said...

Are the Jills the first team to really dislike us Marco?

We dislike Palace who prefer to dislike Brighton. We also dislike Millwall who prefer to dislike West Ham. Perhaps we should adopt the Jills as our rivals.

Their Charlton raised, Millwall supporting chairman certainly seems to dislike us. Why does he say, that we say, we are from Kent?

Erm, haven't you heard 'South London is wonderful' Patsy babe? The only person continually droning on about Charlton being in Kent is YOU!!

Marco. said...

Hi Ketts.
I reckon Scally keeps going on about us pretending we are in Kent as it masks his own marketing shambles.
Despite a catchment area of well over 1 million people beyond Greater London, heading South East, only around 6 or 7000 people can raise themselves to watch the Gills.
We don't blame other clubs because people who live in Greenwich choose to watch Arsenal. Chelsea or West Ham.
People are free to support whoever they want, wherever they live.
BBC Kent started covering us when we were in the Premiership. It didn't really work for me as I often found myself unable to pick up commentary of far flung away games as I live too close to the Valley! However, I could understand that BBC Kent were likely to get more listeners who were interested in hearing us play against Villa for example. rather than the Gills against another equally lowly club at the time.
Charlton offering cheap transport to the Valley really got Scally's goat. People weren't forced to use it, it was there for people who already had an interest.
Scally also knows, if he tried to set up a similar scheme, he would have no takers.
We don't pretend we are IN Kent, we just marketed the area knowing full well that there is interest from Kent.
I'm not sure why but the Gills seem to dislike Swindon???
Scally has worked hard to get his supporters to dislike us but unless we end up playing them for the next 3 or 4 years, they will never be anything more than an irritating kid brother rather than a hated long term rival.

Anonymous said...

As much as it pains me to defend Paul Scally - in my opinion, one of the least likeable people in football - there have been numerous references to the 'Kent derby' on the OS this week, and the club is always quick to play up the Kent connection.

Marco. said...

Hmm. I noticed that too. I hope it was an attempt to wind Scally up!
Ultimately, it was simply a game of football that both teams were desperate to win.
We wanted the points to help us gain promotion and they wanted to beat us to teach us a lesson for being successful in 'their' community.
I'd have preferred the label 'A2 derby' if we really had to call it something.
By next weekend, most Charlton fans will have forgotten all about Gillingham. Probably most Gills won't be too fussed about us either. Scally will still be seething of course!