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Not good enough
We were facing a side fighting for its life at the bottom of the table, a side with a good home record and a side we knew would be up for it and in our faces but sadly we failed to deal with it.
Frank Sinclair hadn’t travelled and in came Michael Duff whilst somewhat strangely Jean-Louis Valois was preferred to Dean Bowditch with Graham Branch playing up front alongside Ade Akinbiyi.
There were some old faces on view and some warm receptions, the best of all being reserved for Akinbiyi who received a standing ovation from the Gills’ fans. This was where his career really got underway after Tony Pulis paid Norwich a quarter of a million for him over eight years ago.
Gillingham came at us from the off and have virtually all of the play in the opening exchanges but we defended well and restricted them to long range efforts in the main that generally came closer to threatening the crowd in the £10 seats on the scaffolding than they did Brian Jensen who was taking his turn in goal.
They were hitting us with a lot of long balls into the box and much of the work in the defence was aerial with Duff doing a lot of covering and winning a lot of balls in the air alongside Cahill and McGreal.
Any progress to get forward from the Clarets was rare but we did on one occasion when James O’Connor went down in the box. There appeared to be very little claim for a penalty at first but O’Connor was sure and went and had a word with the referee, there wouldn’t be many others on the pitch that O’Connor would tower over.
Olivier was having none of it but as the argument continued the well named referee theatrically produced his yellow card to bring the James’ arguments to and end.
I couldn’t say one way or the other, it was down the other end and although we were at least not subjected to dense fog this time, the view at the Priestfield still made it impossible to judge what had happened.
Graham Branch got in a good right footed effort shortly afterwards that went over but then Gillingham pushed forward again but they really lacked any sort of quality in trying to break us down and it was probably no surprise to see us go in 0-0 at half time.
The half time talk centred on our inept first half performance and also the sighting of the first even £3 pie at a football ground. When will football clubs stop fleecing the fans?
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Within a minute or so the home side were in front. After some neat build up play on the left our former loan player Jay McEveley played the ball inside for Darius Henderson who took the ball right to the edge of the penalty box before hitting a shot into the top corner to Jensen’s left giving him no chance.
It was all Gillingham now and they could have twice doubled their lead. Firstly a shot fizzed just wide and then Henderson saw his effort go straight at Jensen.
Steve Cotterill decided to do something about it and made a double substitution. There could be no disagreements with who was coming off, it just had to be John Oster and Valois. Oster had made little impact but had at least tried to make something happen, it was difficult to recall any real contribution that Valois had made.
On came Tony Grant (apparently suffering with mumps, as was Lee Roche who was ruled out altogether) and Dean Bowditch. Branchy remained up front with Bowditch going down the right hand side.
We did come into the game a bit more but never gave the impression that we might actually grab an equaliser and in fact it was Gillingham who came closest to scoring. It appeared that Jensen had made a superb save to deny Henderson, however it was not a save at all but a bad miss from Henderson and he eventually kicked the ball against Jensen’s backside.
Three minutes of time were added on and it was just, we thought, a matter of going through the motions. Then the assistant referee shirked his duty and denied Burnley a clear goalscoring opportunity with just ninety seconds left on the clock.
Cox came across to clear the ball from Bowditch and clear he did, with the palm of his hand. If you want a banged to rights penalty this was it as Cox turned sheepishly realising he had got away with it.
I don’t know who would have taken the spot kick, I don’t know for sure if we would have scored. But we would have been more likely to score than not and could well have come away with a point.
It would have been undeserved because we really were awful and got what we really did deserve – nothing. We hadn’t played a good side, they lacked any sort of real quality but they wanted that win badly and got it.
We sadly never gave the impression we wanted it at all. More than 90 minutes, we didn’t even get that.
All that was left was for some Burnley fans, probably those who had been abusing Branch all afternoon despite the fact that he was probably our best player, to turn on manager Steve Cotterill. They made abusive gestures and booed as he and his players left the pitch before applauding Ternent, Jepson and Cox.
The teams were,
Gillingham: Jason Brown, Nyron Nosworthy, Chris Hope, Ian Cox, Jay McEveley, Nicky Southall, Paul Smith, Jonathan Douglas, Michael Flynn, Mamady Sidibe (Darren Byfield 73), Darius Henderson. Subs not used: Steve Banks, John Hills, Matthew Jarvis, Andrew Crofts.
Burnley: Brian Jensen, Michael Duff, Gary Cahill, John McGreal, Mo Camara, John Oster (Tony Grant 62), Micah Hyde, James O’Connor, Jean-Louis Valois (Dean Bowditch 62), Ade Akinbiyi, Graham Branch. Subs not used: Danny Coyne, Paul Scott, Joel Pilkington.
Referee: Ray Olivier (West Midlands).
Attendance: 9,447.