Gillingham FC Forum

http://www.kentonline.co.uk/medway/spor ... all-69864/

So the Gills are going to Wembley.........to defend their actions in the Millwall game. They are charged with "failing to ensure that its players conducted themselves in an orderly fashion" but I don't really understand where or why we are involved in this. Perhaps "our" previous with the FA just make them want to have a go at us! I know I am biased but this seems ludicrous to me. The facts are (and they seem to be backed up by the video after the game):

Joe Martin stamps on Ryan Jackson. Jackson gets a yellow whilst on the floor but Martin is subbed later and escapes any punishment and is not charged at all by the FA!
Players start to jostle about and Dominic Samuel goes down claiming he was headbutted.
Millwall "admitted they were in the wrong" but both sides get charged!

How does any of that make any sense? Perhaps because it's Millwall. We all know what they are like and for them this is tame!

I was at the game and all the problems came from the Millwall players.We can be called biased,but it is what we saw.Samuel went down and you could see something happened there.Jackson as well.

The reaction of the players tells a thousand words and we have watched them for long enough now to know how their body language changes to different situations. They anger about what was happening was tangible. The FA have fined the Gills £4,750 for failing to control the players and a further £2,500 for surrounding the referee in the game before (Burton). Mr Scally, correctly in my opinion, wants to know why we get fined but when it happens in a Premier League game in front of millions watching on TV, it is not even mentioned!

We have had some horrendous referees lately making decisions my mother-in-law wouldn't and now we get fined when we take offence to getting elbowed off the park!!! Beginning to think its an FA conspiracy against us.

Unfortunately we are paying the penalty for having a chairman no-one likes and a reputation largely created by him. It's not fair but it is avoidable. We've been tagged with everything from racism to unfair dismissal, bringing the game into disrepute to breaching FA rules.

But surely if you strictly administer rules in one case but then not bother to even try in another, aren't the FA leaving themselves open to losing out should a court of arbitration get involved and rule in our favour? If this was 2 employees, one who was constantly off sick and a distruptive influence and the other a model employee, it wouldn't matter one jot about past history to an employment tribunal if you discriminated against the former in favour of the latter???

I have no doubt Mr Scally's past appearances with the FA board has played a part in this but that as far as I am concerned is discrimination. Besides, if there was one club in the country worse than us that would NEVER get preferential treatment by getting away scott free that surely would be Millwall!!!!

Absolutely, which shows you just how far our stock has fallen. When your family is involved in serious criminality, you regularly get turned over in the courts and quasi-legal institutions, when you allow yourself to get embroiled in spats with journalists, other clubs and the FA, when you fail to repay a substantial personal loan ...all this is bound to reflect on the organisation of which you are the Chairman and CEO.

I think Edinburgh has the potential to be a future England manager so this will rankle with him and I hope doesn't mark his card as he too felt agrieved. Someone posted the link to the footage on You Tube. For those who haven't seen it it is worth a view and many neutrals would be amazed at the outcome. Remember I believe I'm right in saying that Ryan Jackson gets booked in this for being stamped on whilst on the ground, no action against the player who knocked Samuel to the ground after play had stopped and it was the Gills punished for surrounding the ref whilst Millwall escaped.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW7l4hbvT0I

I was quite impressed with the way young Bradley tried to get the players away from the trouble, the lad is growing up and shows signs of a future captain.
As for the FA, it is high time they were charged with "bringing the game into disrepute." but they are hardly likely to charge themselves.

I don't understand this week's article about Greg Dyke stepping down as boss. It came across as "the FA need someone less opinionated" to me but that rarely comes from the man himself!!! Unless they told him if he stood again he might find himself a bit red faced?!