Gillingham FC Forum

On Thursday I called in at The Hive, Barnet's ground and training centre and finally got the chance to say well done to Martin Allen for winning the League 2 title with Gillingham and as a fan how happy I was because I never thought I would experience such a thing as a Gills fan!
I was at the Hive for 2 hours, made very welcome and had a coffee in Martin's office!

That was nice of Allen .He always has time for the fans.

That's great, shame he is such a poor manager, you only have to see how he is destroying Barnet to know that, what are they top ,clear of the pack by 9 points, scored 53 goals and it's only halfway through the season, and then there's the mighty Gills..............ooohhhhh.
Should have weeded out the bad apples Scally,but you didn't because we don't have a general manager or a director of football, call it what you want, who knows the game.

How quickly we all forget.

Yes MA was a fans person, so what. Talking to staff down at the club he was often bullish in his behaviour towards them, he made loads of poor decisions and he got us promoted because we had the best players.

I am grateful for what he did, but I am not going to now start regretting his departure. His behaviour is strange at best.

But then being a Good old boy seems good enough for some people.

I can only judge a person how they are to me.And Allen was always friendly enough,and polite to me.Obviously things went on as we have heard,but it`s hard to dislike someone when you can only see how they are to you.I mostly like Allen because he won us our first League Title in nearly 50 years.I doubt I will ever see that again.

Maybe being bullish is what these prima donners need, could you imagine anyone going into Sir Alex's office or Cluffys office to debate their playing time ?? Look like he is going to take two sides up as champions inside three years ,don't care about much else,the players are big boys they can look after themselves, and if the tea lady got upset boo hoo.

Agree with 1066...results make the manager's reputation along with character but If I had to have one out of two I'd go for results every time. England's national side has long been afflicted by having a succession of 'nice guys'' to manage it.

The 2012 / 2013 season was an incredible season, not only did Gillingham get promoted as League Two Champions but we were top of the table for nine months and we never got the credibility we deserved, I remember Martin Allen having a go at The Football League Show because they did not send anyone down to Priestfield Stadium, but whenever Swindon Town or Crawley Town got promoted, they were getting extended coverage every 2-3 months.

We smashed a lot of records that season and going up as League Two Champions was the highlight of my time as Gillingham Supporter.

But not having The Open Top Bus Parade for winning The League Two Title because were going to smash League One was Martin Allen's idea and the following season saw some very strange scenario's, putting Charlie Lee, Chris Whelpdale, Steven Gregory and Antonio German on the transfer list appeared to be the final straw and Adebayo Akinfenwa did that BBC Interview where he revealed that Peter Taylor had lifted a dark cloud which suggested that all was not well behind the scenes towards the end of Martin Allen's reign, and senior players went to Paul Scally's office demanding for a managerial change.

Whenever Martin Allen comes into a club he has been given a objective, keep Barnet in The Football League or get Gillingham promoted and Martin Allen usually achieves this objective, but after that it's "Where Do I go From Here ???" because the objectives change but your still at the same club, the challenge for Barnet is to keep hold of Martin Allen if he gets them promoted into The Football League and if Martin Allen will leave Barnet for a fourth time, or does Martin Allen want to stay at one club and look to build a club from the ground up on and off the field ???

I will never forget what Martin Allen did in that 2012 / 2013 season where we went up as League Two Champions and lost just once away from home in twenty one away league games before defeats to Cheltenham Town and Burton Albion on the final day of the season (although at Burton we celebrated every goal and just enjoyed being Champions, plus when are you going to see Gillingham being given the guard of honour every again).

But Cheltenham Town paint a very different picture and they really dislike Martin Allen, which hurt Cheltenham Town because Martin Allen's Father Dennis is fondly remembered during his time at Cheltenham Town.

http://cheltenhamtownchatter.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/i-would-love-it-if-we-beat-them.html

This Article is well worth a read.