Gills FA Cup draw

[Garawa]

So its either Brackley (who have Gary Mulligan in their side) or Barrow at home in the first round of the cup. Couldn't ask for more really. When we lost to Burscough we were away and Hessy, Smith, Crofts, Flynn and Jarvis were about the most stand-out players. Against Dover they had a point to prove after we stole half their club and we were in a rut. This is different and we won't have a better chance to get through.

[Kent_UckyFriedGills]

I agree,I was hoping for a non League side,but to get one at home is great aswell.Both Teams play in the Conference North.You shouldn`t underestimate any Team,but we should be looking at winning the game quite comfortably.Non League Teams do up their game,but at Burscough when we went out we were poor then,and against Dover they had a point to prove.Hopefully Ticket prices will be sensible so we can get a decent crowd.

[mark8364]

Hope Brackley get through, draw at Priestfield, replay at St.james' Park, which is a hours walk from home

[Kent_UckyFriedGills]

Brackley and Barrow will play their replay tomorrow night,so not long to wait to find out who we will play.

[lidbid46]

Anyone heard about a proposed boycott of this game to protest against Scally? Can't imagine why this might happen now and not last season when we were winning games! Strange that! What 20 or so people, many of whom seem to be grown men and women, hope to achieve is beyond me - surely now is exactly the time to all be pulling together.

[Garawa]

They stated that boycotting a league match penalised those that went to every game and so the FA Cup game made sense. Of course, even if everything was perfect around the club the attendances will still be low because of the visiting team so they can claim it was a victory. How would they truly know what impact it had.

They are doing this because they believe Scally isn't investing in the team but they are massively misguided. For a start the financial fair play rules dictate how much can be spend, he couldn't plough money in even if he wanted to! They also appear to claim he is pocketing the money from recent sales even though such revenue is paid in installments. They then claim all our signing were free when in fact a lot of the installments are likely to be passed onto Cody's bank account and we had to pay a small fee for German! They even state that nobody has bought the club because Scally won't sell because you "can't buy a house unless the owner puts it on the market". Scally has stated publicly many times he is open to relinquishing the club - if anyone seriously was in a position to take us over they would make their intentions VERY clear. The fact that we have heard nothing more than suggests to me there isn't anyone (just like at Newcastle) that has the inclination to do so.

It is fine to hate the chairman and he certainly doesn't help himself sometimes but I get really angry when facts are totally dismissed. One person even mentioned the fact that he "owns" the stadium even though it was transferred back a couple of years ago. If I was a billionaire and I bought the club I still couldn't do half of what these people seem to want with out dodgy Man City style deals - not until a couple of percent of Kent residents bother to get off their bums and actually watch regular matches instead of the biggest game in years or a title decider to actually increase revenue and spend potential anyway. Utterly futile in my book.

[Garawa]

Just spent ages trawling the net to find out the result of the replay. The FA Cup website only lists 5 replays with Barrow v Brackley not one of them. Barrow's website says the next fixture is tonight at 7:45 and Brackley's website didn't fair much better until a tweet appeared in their twitter feed (as most websites don't have a live twitter feed on their sites then I doubt I might ever have found out) that they had won 1-0 after extra time so both matches after 90 minutes were 0-0. Not sure I could cope with the lack of information at that level of the league system - thank goodness for twitter I suppose!!!

[Kent_UckyFriedGills]

So we will play Brackley Town next week,and the return of Gary Mulligan.They have only lost once this season,but if we play our game from the off and don`t start nervously we should win comfortably.If we play like we did v Dover then we could go out.

[CadburyMan]

Says a lot about Gary "the goal machine" Mulligan that Brackley only managed 1 goal in 3.5hrs of football (I'm presuming that he played)

[Elgrande]

Gary; I found it straight away on the BBC sport website under FA Cup qualifying?

[Garawa]

Really? I normally use that one but didn't!. Sky Sports didn't list them at all and all the ITV FA Cup website could say is that Northampton Town is live match. Then the official website of the cup from the FA only listed 5 of the replays so I went to the teams own websites!!!! Should have just stuck with what I normally do!

By the way the boycott is currently at 14. Going to be very empty then

[Rimshot]

Gary,

I'm afraid your PR piece on behalf of the Chairman contains a number of strange assertions, the most significant being the claim that he is not able to invest in the club. Sorry, this is complete nonsense. Any shareholder is able to invest in their business in a number of ways.

FA rules are designed primarily to ensure that clubs don't spend money they haven't got and so risk going into receivership. Putting money in can hardly jeopardise the stability of a business !

As we all know Mr S has never put money in and clearly never will. I think the point these people are making is just that. He simply uses the club to generate personal income and with him at the helm we will never become a better club. Personally I don't expect the protest to gather much momentum but I can't pretend I wouldn't like to see Scally depart.

[Garawa]

It isn't meant to be a PR piece but I have found myself "defending" him from totally inaccurate comments. Current rules state that League 1 clubs can only spend upto 60% of their income on players and wages. With gates pretty low and reduced TV revenue our ability to spend without breaking the rules is much harder, the only way would be to DRASTICALLY increase the clubs income. A chairman cannot just chuck in a load of cash even if he wanted to unless it is a serious dodgy deal (such as Man City's "ground re-naming") which would stand out like a sore thumb with us.

Of course I don't believe he would invest his own money anyway but, if he left, and somebody did buy the club, they would still not be able to do what people want Scally to do as the club's income will remain the same. As there is nobody out there willing to buy the club I seriously doubt removing the chairman would do anything but put us out of business.

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/23669759

[Rimshot]

You are missing the point.If a chairman puts £5million in the bank account that is income . The rules are there to stop clubs spending what they haven't got, not what they have.

[Garawa]

I thought it was on gate receipts and the like as they specifically mentioned Portsmouth. One of the crucial things there was that Mandric and others put money into the club but only ever intended it to be loans so pumping money in is fine, but when they want their money back the club goes bust. I was under the impression these rules were to stop that from happening - we have already reimbursed directors who had previously loaned us money. I'm not sure any chairman pumps much cash into the business these days do they - Barry Hearn is considerably richer than Scally I would imagine and yet their top of the table side was pretty much free transfers like ours.