Past Times: Part 3 - Staying up or going down?
The bizarre thing about the playing strips was that the Gills took to the field in their second strip of red shirts, black shorts whilst Peterborough also wore their second strip of all white with blue trim.
I may be wrong but I believe the reason for this was that there was an FA rule stating that if colours clashed both teams should change to their second strips wherever possible.
On the morning of the game I was presented with my first ever blue and white scarf, a present from my neighbour, so I was very miffed to see the Gills come out wearing red!
Anyway, back to the games, with the Gills safely through to the fifth round of the FA Cup we simply had to get that big name draw this time. After all Chelsea and Leeds were still in the cup….one of those would do nicely.
As usual the draw was unkind to us and our reward for getting so far in the competition as a division three side was an away trip to 2nd division Watford (who had knocked out Liverpool in the previous round).
This game, however, provided a big moment in my Gills’ supporting years as I was allowed to go to my first ever Gillingham away match. Back in those days Maidstone & District used to run coaches to away matches. We booked our seats and on the Saturday of the game walked down to Rochester High Street to catch the coach.
It was soon obvious that there was going to be a large Gills following at the game as a stream of M&D buses drove along the High St. Maidstone & District had received so many bookings that instead of coaches they had put on double-decker buses! We sat on the top deck, scarves hanging from the back window, and travelled in anticipation to Vicarage Road.
Having never been to any other ground other than Priestfield I wasn’t that much impressed with the stadium. It was very similar to Gillingham’s home just bigger!
The Gills put up a brave fight but lost 2-1 on a mud heap of a pitch. Brian Yeo(who else) scoring our consolation towards the end of the game. The attendance was a massive 25,868 but there was to be no giant killing our FA Cup dream was over!
Saturday 7th February 1970
FA Cup 5th Round
Watford 2-1 Gillingham (HT 0-0)
ATT 25,868
Scorer: Yeo
Gills: Simpson, Weston, Machin, Bailey, Galvin, Williams, Smillie, Tydeman, Green, Yeo, Pound (Woodley)
So, it was back to concentrating on the league and we certainly needed to do that!
Gills were in serious trouble at the wrong end of the division. As we went into our last home match of the season, against Bournemouth, the situation was, whoever won would stay up. It was a very tense game which finished……………..0-0 !
The Gills still had one game to play though so could still stay up if they could win it. However, it wasn’t going to be easy the match was a rearranged game at league champions Orient (they had dropped Leyton from their name only to restore it several years later!) Not only had they been crowned champions, they hadn’t lost at Brisbane Road for 6 months!
The game was on a Monday evening and back then it wasn’t easy to find out the scores of lower division games. The only place that you were guaranteed a full rundown of the results was on ITV’s News at Ten. I stayed up to await the inevitable.
However, I nearly fell off the chair as I listened to the newsreader say Orient 1 Gillingham 2. We’d done it, against all the odds, Gills had stayed up and Bournemouth were relegated. It wasn’t until the papers arrived next morning that I found out that Orient had missed a penalty and gone 1-0 up. We came from behind to win with goals from Mike Green and 5 minutes from the end, the goal that kept us up was scored by Brian Yeo.
The following day there was a picture in the paper of the Gills’ players celebrating with champagne, but I couldn’t help thinking that I wanted my team celebrating with champagne, because they had been promoted, not because they had avoided relegation by the skin of their teeth.
(to be continued)