The Dugout Diaries: Gills v Barnsley

What’s happened??? I leave the Gills after the Bournemouth game all smiles, and come back to this??? Four games…. 10 goals against… 2 scored.

After being absent from the Oxford and Forest games, I was looking forward to my return to Priestfield. A day of celebrating up in Trafalgar Square with our Cricket boys and girls had filled me with all the joy that sporting success can bring. By 9.40 last night the nasty taste of defeat had set up camp in my mouth. Here’s how the night unfolded in the dugouts.

The first forty minutes were actually going to plan. Several attempts on target brought the now popular Neale Cooper catchphrase “How many more fookin’ chances?!” On I am sure is going to run and run.

Ronnie wasn’t impressed with Hess’ free kick taking. After another floated free kick Ronnie shouted at Hess to “Fookin’ whip the ball in there Hess!” Set pieces have been a fallacy of Gillingham play for as long as I remember.

Hess wasn’t the only person getting in Ronnie’s bad books. Ronnie boiled over when referee Trevor Kettle (boom boom tish… I thank you!) blew up twice for fouls instead of playing the obvious advantage.

“That’s two crap decisions in a row now!” fumed Ronnie to the fourth official!

Then two goals in quick succession left everyone dumbstruck. The Barnsley bench were in raptures! Barnsley had done nothing all night then two breakaway goals!

The team left the field with booing ringing in their ears. Unjustly I felt….

…. But I can understand why people were upset in the second half. Plan B seemed to entail long ball and random positional play from one and all.

Barnsley were hungry for every ball… even the one that went off the field towards Neale Cooper. Chris Shuker slid to keep it in and carried on upending our manager. Laying on the floor laughing his head off Neale was unhurt apart from his pride. Surely one to look out for on Question of Sport’s “What happened next” round.

Unfortunately that was the only time on the night Neale had reason to laugh. Ian Cox caught the wrong side of a Barnsley player brought him down. Andy Ritchie was screaming for Cox to be sent off. A yellow card was the right decision, especially as from the resulting free kick we were hurt even more.

I didn’t get to see much of the rest of the game due to the amount of people filing past me. (I won’t get on my soapbox about it!)

As pointed out to me, the fourth official spent a lot of the game doing warm up stretches, on one occasion down the sidelines. We wondered at first if one of the officials was injured and he was just about to come on. Wasn’t the case though. Must have thought he was going to get a game. Thinking about it… he couldn’t have done much worse for us!

Onwards and upwards for the weekend, but until then!

Doug out!