Gillingham FC Forum

Had a good 15 minutes on air with Andy Gray and Richard Keys.

Basically said he was disappointed not to have still been manager, He felt that after coming 8th twice in a row he would have got it right this season and taken us up.

Said He enjoyed the role of Football Director but was now missing the coaching and managerial side and said that if anybody wanted him he would be interested to go back
into management.

Spoke highly of Scally and spoke well of him, said that it must have been hard for scally to sack him as they are really good friends.

Apparantly a club came in for him during the season but scally asked him to stay and finnish off the job which he has done.

Finished off by saying if anyone was interested please ring him.


Most of the conversation was on the topic of the play offs and what it was like to experience them.

Good interview, spoke well and enjoyed it.

A brilliant hypothetical question. If Hessy had been given the money and got the kind of players Martin Allen was afforded, where would we have finished?! I am impressed with the fitness and that side of things and Martin Allen has undoubtably build the squad that can now compete more rigorously in League 1, but I think we finished top because we had the best players. Simple as that.

Well certainly no higher than we did Garawa.

Martin Allen being renowned as a 'fire fighter' in the past suggests than when he came to teams like Barnet, he tightens up the deffence, something he clearly did with us, something that won us promotion, and I feel something that maybe wouldn't have been the first thing on Hessys mind. With Hessy, much as I love him, playoffs at best, we would have been potentially more entertaining at times, but that would have cost us I feel.

Goals win games. Defences win titles. We won the title partly because we had the best players but the main reason we won was because we had players that obeyed instructions. That is down to discipline. I have no doubt that Allen is strict but fair. If he tells a player to do something, then its done or else! Our away performances were some of the most professional I've ever seen from a Gills side. We went with a game plan and stuck to it and in the vast majority of cases we were succesful. (We'd had got something from Burton if there anything riding on it!)