Next Game – Gillingham (home)

Ian Cox

When we travelled to the Priestfield Stadium back on August Bank Holiday Monday hopes were not too high. We had lost all three of our opening league games whilst Gillingham remained unbeaten and hadn’t conceded a goal in their three games, albeit they had only scored once.

It was though somewhat easier than envisaged and the 3-0 scoreline certainly didn’t flatter us as we scored through Ian Moore, Dean West and Robbie Blake to record our first win there since the days of John Bond and a Wayne Biggins winner.

That day at Gillingham news was breaking that Burnley were set to sell Gareth Taylor to Nottingham Forest and since then Gillingham have also sold their top scorer Marlon King to Forest. Both were for financial reasons and both look good decisions right now with neither of them setting the world on fire by the side of the River Trent.

It has been a constant financial battle for the Gills since they won promotion and at no time has Andy Hessenthaler really had much if any money to spend. Besides King they have also recently sold former Burnley loan player Paul Shaw who was coming to the end of his contract in the summer. He has moved on to Sheffield United.

Hessenthaler has boosted the squad recently and brought in three new players during the January sales, two of whom were in action during the recent cup tie.

That day Alan Pouton was making his debut having signed from Grimsby whilst Darius Henderson, a capture from Reading, scored their consolation goal.

Geordie Pouton is an experienced midfielder having already played over 200 league games for York and Grimsby whilst the 22-year-old Henderson has a record similar to Brad Maylett’s at Burnley. He made 71 league appearances for Reading with 66 of those coming on from the subs bench. He signed for Gillingham following a successful loan spell at Brighton.

The third of the signings is Patrick Agyemang who was bought on the cheap from the Franchise. This is one of their players who West Ham weren’t able to get their hands on. Needless to say the fee was a knock down figure and looks as though it won’t even pay the NHS rent for a couple of Franchise home games.

Agyemang was cup tied two weeks ago but has made two league appearances for the Gills since he signed for them.

The signings were needed to give the club a boost as they started to slip towards the bottom end of the table although a win last week moved them five points clear of us. They, like the Clarets, were only able to pick up three points in January and both of us find ourselves a lot closer to the drop zone than we did at the end of 2003 in terms of points.

That win last week came at home for them against next to bottom BRBC with Agyemang scoring his first Gillingham goal with what was the only goal of the game.

The game will probably be best remembered for the red card given to BRBC’s keeper Alan Combe after he reacted by pushing referee David Crick. His club have reimbursed the ticket money to all the travelling away fans with Combe’s fine paying for it.

Agyemang’s winner was a spectacular effort and Hessenthaler said of him: "His pace is unbelievable and I'm expecting great things from him now that we've got him on a long-term contract."

The Gillingham team showed three changes from the team that lost at Burnley and they line up: Nico Vaesen, Barry Ashby, Chris Hope, Nyron Nosworthy, Leon Johnson (Richard Rose 20), Andy Hessenthaler (Kevin James 83), Alan Pouton, Paul Smith, Danny Spiller, Patrick Agyemang, Darius Henderson (Andrew Crofts 85). Subs not used: Bertrand Bossu, Matthew Jarvis.

Hopefully we will now get a similar result in the league to that two weeks ago in the FA Cup.

Click HERE for all Gillingham’s results this season.

Past Results in the last 20 years

Click HERE to see more results against Gillingham.