Gillingham FC Forum

Have just received the draw for the Capital One Cup. To say I’m staggered to have been in the hat with Plymouth Argyle when I’m told the draw is regionalized would be an understatement.
Is this logic gone completely mad? A 510 mile round trip, over 10 hours on a coach on a Tuesday night for a first round tie is sheer stupidity, in fact borders on inefficiency by the league in allowing two clubs so far apart to be competing at such an early stage in the competition.

Exactly how many supporters do the league think we are going to be able to take, given they would have to take a day, or probably two days off work to make such a long and expensive trip.
We have discussed many times over the years as a League about ensuring fans get a good deal, that we ensure we play “More Meaningful Matches’ especially in regards to midweek games, so where does this particular game fit into that ethos, or are we still learning, in fact it appears we have learnt nothing.
Plymouth should be playing a side from the South West, Gillingham should be playing a game in London or the South East, just like Millwall, Barnet, Wycombe, Charlton and others are playing.
I am hugely disappointed at this pairing and quite understandably our supporters will be horrified and disturbed at missing out on an opportunity to support their team.

This is a letter (bordering on the "bringing the game into disrepute" bracket) to the Football League from Mr Scally published on the club website! I agree with what he is saying but at the end of the day if you regionalise by North and South what else can you do? If you stick Plymouth in the Northern section they could easily end up with an even longer journey! I'm sure many clubs would consider our little corner of England to be a hefty journey. The only way to overcome it would be split the draw into many smaller regions but that won't be fair to many clubs. Until they do, all clubs are aware that someone will get us or Plymouth and face a long trip so not sure how / why it has come as a surprise!

I would like to see the League Cup merged with the the Scottish one. Have local regional groups played instead of some later pre-season friendlies so we would play Crawley, Brighton, Charlton etc. Plymouth would face Exeter, Yeovil etc with group winners going into the first knockout round. Imagine these extra derbies bringing in much bigger crowds and revenue! Trouble is it isn't fair, I can't imagine Hartlepool ever getting very far!

One of the problems with Scally is that he is virtually illiterate. Supporters aren't 'horrified and disturbed' by having to play Plymouth, it's not as if we have discovered a nest of vampires living under the Rainham end.

Even when he has a point to make his choice of language is guaranteed to undermine the case. No wonder he always loses in court and at tribunals. We have been unfortunate in getting this draw but he will have known what the regional split of clubs was long ago and all this does is reinforce the impression that our Chairman is a serial whinger. He's probably hacked off because he'll have to change his first class flight.

It is about time that the regions were changed, ie have North/North West/North East together, then Midland area down to say Shropshire and across to East Anglia, South West incorporating Wiltshire/Hampshire and the South East/London/ Essex! I agree with Mr Scally 100% like I do on most things! I appreciate I won't be going to the game, but it is a bit much that some fans would have to potentially take two days off work to attend the game! My brother is pleased with the draw as he lives in Cornwall!

Agree sort of but the time to challenge the set up is surely at the league AGM and with the support of the majority of the clubs and not by a single letter after the event

It's what we call democracy.

That's right. We all knew who we could face well in advance and was even published by the club themselves so it really shouldn't come as a shock when we drew one of them!

I see the League responded with how long trips will happen in the draw and that we benefited from having Newcastle down and improves the likelyhood of a big draw but that is in Round 2 where there is no seeding or regionalisation so the argument wasn't addressed. Neither was the fact the distance issue was just glossed over when we could have had much closer Northern sides. There is no point in regionalising the round if it doesn't achieve anything but, as Cadbury rightly says, these rules have been in place for a number of seasons now so its a bit late to moan about it now!

The League Cup should be Sub Regionalised into North West, North East, South West and South East for The First Round Draw for The League Cup and there are so many pro's for why this should be the case, no long away trips for supporters in the first week of the football season, the likelyhood of more supporters going if Gillingham were home / away to Dagenham & Redbridge for example, clubs would make more money on ticket sales if there is going to be a larger then normal turnout, and there is a chance that more first round fixtures will be televised as a sub regionalised draw will mean that there could be more derby draws in the first round.

Plymouth Argyle Away is the luck or the unluckyness of the draw, but if your going to regionalise the competition North and South for Round One, then you mind as well Regionalise the competition East and West at the same-time, I am sure that Plymouth Argyle were hoping for Swindon Town or Bristol City at home knowing that both of these sides will take over 1,000 supporters to Home Park on a Tuesday Night, Gillingham will be hard pressed to taking 250.

Why not give clubs the option to move League Cup Ties to The First Of August, which is a Saturday and that also means both Manager's can name stronger line up's as there would be a week gap between The League Cup Game and the opening fixture of The League Season ???