Headley: Coverage? What coverage?

There are, of course, fans who are strongly opposed to the proposed move. Some argue the club is based in Medway and it should remain so. Others point to the fact that we struggle to fill a 11,000 seater stadium now, so why build a larger, new one? Again, these are valid points, but regardless of which side you sit on the argument of relocation, our situation is clear.

The truth of the matter is Gillingham Football Club is not maximising its potential in its current state. Moving to a new stadium may be one answer, but other factors are holding the club back - none more so than the public perception of Gillingham Football Club by the people of Kent. Or more accurately, the people of the Medway Towns.

Despite the huge catchment area of the Medway Towns, Gillingham FC struggles with attendances - and this costs the club valuable revenue. The lack of revenue makes it more difficult for the club to strengthen the squad and the quality of play drops, driving the existing casual support away and resulting in fewer season ticket renewals. The vicious circle is then underway.

The number one weapon in the club's armoury is the media. Good media coverage means the GFC 'brand' is pushed to the people of the area - and over time this will help attract people to the club. Some will come out of intrigue, while others will be excited at the prospect of having a local club to identify with. However, without the media helping make the club accessible to the people, Gillingham FC will struggle - and so it has proved in recent seasons.

The shocking coverage we as a club receive from our local media is one of the biggest problems faced by this club. We as fans have to really put in a lot of effort in order to see highlights (or at least a goal clip) of our team in action. If we take Sky out of the equation here (as their sports coverage is excellent), it really isn't easy to follow the Gills in the media at all.

The radio coverage is of varying quality at best. Capital Gold are very enthusiastic in their coverage, but Radio Kent has been exceptionally poor over the years. With poor commentators who in some cases demonstrate spectacularly poor knowledge of the teams and players taking part, Radio Kent's coverage has been an embarrassment.

The next time you do an away trip, check out the BBC Radio coverage in other regions and see how they cover their league teams. Many regions have to cover two or more teams on a matchday - and do so very well indeed. Radio Kent seem incapable of providing compelling coverage, despite having just one league club in their catchment area. The only advantage they have over Capital Gold's coverage is the superior sound quality by their FM broadcast compared to Capital's MW.

There are positives. On the newspaper front, we've had this running feud with the Kent Messenger Group in recent years - but I understand that may now be at an end, which is excellent news and should hopefully benefit the club immensely.

When it comes to television however, we really do struggle. One problem (faced by all Football League clubs) is the coverage of the Football League on terrestrial TV. The weekly roundup programme is screened in the dead of night.

However, Gillingham suffers in particular from the lack of quality coverage in the local news. Meridian's coverage of Gillingham FC has been terrible when you consider we are Kent's ONLY league club. Despite being in the same division and not performing too badly at the time, Meridian majored their coverage on Portsmouth virtually every weekend during their promotion season a couple of seasons ago - and it's not been much better since. All too often the Gills playing third or fourth fiddle while the channel preferred to screen highlights of Bournemouth and Reading instead. Gillingham have been the poor relations to just about every other club in the region when it comes to Meridian's coverage of the Football League.

Unfortunately this problem has held the club back for many years now and has meant that many people in the area, particularly kids, end up going up the road to the likes of Charlton as they can identify with the club and its players. The sad truth of the matter is Andy Hessenthaler could walk through a supermarket anywhere in the Medway Towns and probably only be noticed by a handful of people. The reason for this is simply the fact that the club's image is not being adequately conveyed to the people of the Medway Towns - and while the club also has a responsibility for this, the local media are largely to blame. Without the backing of the local media, the club will always be swimming against the tide.

If our club had better coverage in the local media, perhaps we'd see more people starting to come in through the turnstiles each week, increasing our revenue and helping the club to develop and move forward. Perhaps then we'd see fewer empty seats at Priestfield…