That’s it. I’ve given up.
I’ve looked at the situation and finally cut my losses on my season-long spread bet on the Gills. I’m not a high-roller by any means, though those familiar with my moniker may be forgiven for thinking so, but my loss has become significant enough on my unit stake for me to finally concede defeat, and admit, through gritted teeth, that I was wrong and the bookies were right. And I HATE saying that!
I decided to buy Gillingham’s season points with BetHiLo. That means I was betting on the Gills finishing the season with MORE than the bookie’s predicted number of points. For every point over that total, I earned 1x my unit stake. However, for every point under that total at the end of the season, I LOSE 1x my unit stake. The bookies predicted we’d get 54.5 points – and I bet that we’d get more. Yes, yes, I know it sounds utterly ridiculous now, but bear with me.
You see, I was overcome by an emotion that hits most football fans at the start of the season – HOPE. We’d just managed the ‘great escape’ on the final day of last season and were promised, in very serious tones, that the club would ensure that we never went through such an experience again.
Good to hear, but we needed to see some actions to back that up. I remember being convinced at the time that Hessenthaler was NOT the man for the job and that he should be replaced. Check my previous articles on this very website and you’ll see exactly what my feelings were at the time.
However with no changes made to the management, I wanted to see the club make some moves to strengthen an ailing squad – and to be fair the club did, and this gave me the misplaced hope that caused me to place my ill-judged wager on the Gills.
We signed two decent strikers in Iwan Roberts and Darren Byfield. That gave us something we were sadly lacking the season before, firepower. With Danny Spiller coming off the back of a fantastic season and the injuries throughout the squad clearing up, I was confident that the squad was stronger than last time out and that we would therefore improve on last season’s performance. We survived on 51 points last season and I felt at the time that we would comfortably surpass that total. 54.5 points looked a steal. On I went. Bet placed.
After a good start to the season at home, defeating Leeds with a typical Gillingham performance, all harrying and hassling, but with the added dimension of a forward line that could finish, things looked good. We ground out a win over Preston despite playing poorly, another sign of a side capable of having a good season, so I was confident not only that my bet would return a profit, but that if we continued in this vein I might actually stand to win a seriously large chunk of money. Unfortunately it all went wrong.
The wheels started to fall off, goals flew into our net at annoyingly regular intervals and we forgot the basics of football. You know, defending, keeping possession, shooting when in a good position, those sort of things. Unfortunately, things haven’t improved since. The gaffer has shown his inability to turn things around and it seems almost certain that he’s taking us down. It’s just a matter of ‘when’ we’re mathematically relegated rather than ‘if’.
Despite this obvious shambles unfolding before my eyes, my almost unbreakable optimism kept me going – and kept me from cutting my losses earlier in the season, which would have saved me a fair bit too, but that optimism proved my undoing. I, along with most of the Gills support, gave Hessenthaler too much time. Nothing has changed from last season, in fact it’s now worse, but rather than demanding that he goes in the summer, we as a club gave him enough time to ruin this season too – and he hasn’t missed his opportunity has he?!
If you were to describe this season in two words, I’d use the words ‘depressing’ and ‘crap’.
The fact my bet was likely to be a loser was dealt with weeks ago, but I hung onto it in the same way I hung on to my fading hope that Hess could do SOMETHING, ANYTHING, to turn things around. But nothing has changed. Hess still picks his mates, they still fail to perform. He still drops the young players – despite the entire fan base recognising that they are now better players than those who they are dropped to accommodate. I decided that no amount of hoping would see my bet turn from a minus figure to a plus – and no amount of hoping will turn Andy Hessenthaler into a manager capable of running the football club I love.
I realised that I was beaten, and cut my losses last weekend before I lost any more.
I hope Paul Scally realises that with Hess at the helm, we are beaten, and cuts Gillingham’s losses before we lose more than just our Championship status.