Gillingham FC Forum

Whilst it is hardly what most predicted in their Noircat teams and the start was quite concerning, all in all I am quite happy with the start. Of course a win needs to come sooner rather than later but we are unbeaten in 3 and have faced, from the 5 so far, 2 games against relegated Championship sides, 1 against a side who should have been Champions last season and another against a decent side who most would fancy for promotion.

Happy, don't think so, if your going to play with the "big boys" you have to come prepared or you go home with a bloody nose and it is fairly obvious that laying here on the mat hemorrhaging we have not come prepared to play in this division . I would like to think we are going to get better and end up with a mid table position, but..............................

Not come prepared? A creditable draw away at Swindon who beat Crewe 5-0 in the next game? A draw against Brentford who should have been league champions last season?

Yes we shouldn't have lost to Colchester and a win would be nice but we are only 5 games in. We will get wins and have easier games to come but we aren't shipping goals like some sides are so given the circumstances I think it has been an alright start really.

Really ? We haven't won a game !

Im not massively happy as we have not won yet,but the fixtures were very hard.But you can say the same for this month,Crawley away on Saturday who put in a great performance to beat Peterborough away last week.Then Coventry away who are the highest goalscorers,Bradford at home who have started really well in the League,then Crewe away.We need to get the first win as soon as possible to get it out of the way.If we have not won by Crewe away I will be really concerned.

Bristol City, a hard game ? I always think you need to look at the first ten games to see any real pattern emerging but I am now very concerned. we have not substantially strengthened our squad and I think Scally is once more showing that its solely personal income not club success that motivates him.

But I think most of us agreed that decent acquisitions were brought in early last season? He certainly backed the manager then and it seems Cody pretty much swallowed up what was left with his wages. Of course a win is vital and must come soon, but "only" 2 defeats with away games at Wolves and Swindon is good. Had we beat Colchester I don't think much of the concern would be present. Trouble is we are generally conceding first and then looking nervous, something a win would probably stop.

All our acquisitions are frees or loans. That's not to say they were all bad players but going up a division has clearly been too much for some.

Over the last few years we have as a club spent a lot more than most others of our size. We have gone up a league and our crowds have gone down. It was never going to be as easy as many were intimating this season and we can no longer spend like Pulis did to achieve our goals. I think we will do Ok, but no better than mid table.

That's precisely why you need aChairman who is prepared either to invest in the club, attract investment from others, or look for a successor who will. We know Scally won't do any of those things because his interest in GFC is purely financial.
Look at the teams currently doing well in our division, there are a number which get lower gates than we do.
Unfortunately we will never secure a place higher up the league under this regime.
There is no ambition other than to embellish the no doubt tasteful Scally Palace.

Have a think ....when did you ever hear Scally talk enthusiastically or knowledgeably about the game of football ? It' s just an income stream to him.

Rimshot; I dislike the man, but when we did invest heavily and got into the Championship the crowds still didn't come. Since that time football has changed dramatically. Average wages in the lower leagues have gone up and major investors will only get involved where they can see some glory being possible. Football is no longer a working mans sport and the "prawn sandwich" set are not likely to want to come to the Gills on a regular basis.

Without making apologies for the chairman, I don't feel there isn't a boss of any football club out there who isn't using their club for their own means. From the billionaire owners of top-flight clubs using the exposure to show how amazing they are to the likes of Mr Scally who uses it as a job to the little club whose chairman uses the media opportunities to flog an agenda or a business he owns - they ALL are in it for themselves and not to give away a fortune to the local area. Even Mike Ashley and Mike Whelan who invested large sums of their own money in the clubs they support used the clubs to promote, and increase revenue in, their businesses! As long as the club is secure, I don't have a problem with it and from what I understand we are running the club more carefully now so as not to fall into massive debt. I am happy with that.

As for smaller teams doing better this goes back to what I said earlier. Doing well in this league either involves huge sums of money or by just staying in it and building slowly. Leyton Orient and the likes all have a few really key game-changers that come to the club as they attracted by a secure League One outfit. Perhaps some might see us as a club likely to return to League Two and not want to join us whereas last season we were a club on the up so got players we might not have done before. Consolation is the key, build next year and attract a couple of better quality of players. We should get higher gate receipts this season and bigger teams (and bigger away crowds) will add to what we have to play with the following season. Its a slow process but the small clubs that have done well in this league have been building for years. Getting relegated out of it reasonably quickly has knocked us back 4 or 5 years and that mustn't happen again.

and the crowds won't just come...you have to market the business not simply milk it for personal income. after we took 35000 plus to Wembley and again after Shrewsbury there was absolutely no effort made to leverage the support. no follow up emails or flyers, no local campaigning, no attempt to court the media .The club has all my details on file but I have never received one item of proactive marketing from them.
As for Chairman and input/ outtake let's not even bother with the debate. The vast majority of lower league Chairmen don' t even draw a salary !

Whilst I agree with a lot of that I disagree with the local campaigning. I had a conversation with the media manager about crowds and he told me that many of the houses around the ground were given complementary tickets by way of an apology for the inconvenience matchdays cause. Hardly any were redeemed. Unless something happens only the die hard care. At the last Wembley trip I saw an old mate of mine who has never seen the Gills play and calls himself a die hard Liverpool fan. When I challenged him about it he tried to justify by saying he was always into "grass-roots football" as he used to go to England schoolboy games! I don't think he was the only one there either, to many it was an excuse to go to Wembley!

Maybe attendances are not lower than expected but big games are higher than they should be? We might know later as August is always poor for gates and the club seem to be saying we have sold the most season tickets for years! Gates WILL be higher this season even if we get the same number of Gills fans each match by shear fact that many sides will sell out the Brian Moore stand instead of bring a paultry 67 each game!

I'm sorry Rimshot (with respect), but flyers etc to get fans to attend a match? I bet Pompey (16,000 in League 2) don't have to do that. We got gates of 14,000+ against Peterborough in 74 because ordinary fans felt welcome. All this everything should be for families and the single male fan is a pain, rather than the core of support has completely changed the demographic. As I have said before I have a picture of the town end against Leeds in the Cup and I would guess less than 15% of the people in the picture attend anymore. Personally I don't enjoy the match day experience anymore. Sat with a load of moaning, miserable non vocal people who find it difficult to even cheer a goal let alone the team coming out at the start of a game. To attend a match costs about £70.00 per person when you include travel, pre match drinks, ticket half time refreshments and a programme. As a percentage that is about 3 times as much as it cost in the 70's and ten times les enjoyable. Fotball is no longer accessible to the ordinary working man and historically that is the core support of the Gills.