A foot in both camps

I only get to see my club Lincoln very rarely, due to work commitments meaning I get to follow the Gills up and down the country, but I seem to have been very fortunate over recent years.
Twice during the 08/09 season the Imps beat Gillingham and once more they came to Priestfield and walked away with maximum points.
Anyone that was there on Saturday will know what a shocker that first half was. Poor passing, poor distribution and very little threat on the Lincoln goal. And when Albert Jarrett took a punt and Cian Hughton followed up with the goal early on it was an up-hill battle for the Gills.
Lincoln sat deep and did what any team would do - time waste! There were injuries and substitutions to run down the clock and in the end it worked.
If you want a reminder of the Imps win, click here for the report and here for Barry Goodwin's pics.
That leaves the Gills without a win from their opening four games of the season (three in the league) but at least they have the benefit of some quality players coming back from injury. The team that have sat out in recent weeks could have comfortably dealt with League 2.
I’m most looking forward to seeing Cody McDonald. Apparently he’s good mates with x-factor man Ollie Murs and if you click this link HERE you can see him being interviewed on GMTV as he backed his mate for success.
Talking of singing Adebayo Akinfenwa revealed how he sang a “medley” of tunes to his new team-mates before the Hereford game but strangely there was no heckling. Bayo’s said: “Nobody booed. If they did they would have to see me one to one.” As he said that I had visions of Mr T from the A-team. I certainly wouldn’t have questioned his singing ability.
And will we ever see that former Ajax player Stanley Aborah? Injuries seem to have plagued him throughout his career. It stopped him getting a contract with Middlesborough a couple of seasons ago and it could deny him the chance to show his skills with the Gills. I hope he gets another contract as from what I have seen in pre-season he has bags of quality and it would be a shame if he never got the chance to prove what he could do.
Mark McCammon was out with the squad on Saturday after apparently being “beasted” by Nicky Southall in the gym pre-match! (according to Hess) Sounds like an interesting work-out.
At the end of my last blog I said that I couldn’t envisage the Gills trooping off to a chorus of boos on Saturday. How wrong I was.
I wasn’t surprised to hear them on Saturday after that first half performance but now everyone has just got to keep their fingers crossed and hope things improve, and I’m sure they will.
Morecambe are up next as the Gills head to the rather grandly named Globe Stadium. If ever I attended a place called the Globe Stadium I wouldn’t expect to be seeing Morecambe entertaining Gillingham in a League 2 match - no disrespect.
What is impressive is that a team of Morecambe’s standards have managed to build a stadium for £12 million. If they can do it, anyone can do it, so let’s hope the Gills can have a new venue one day.
I’m sure a few of you might have seen how Stimmo’s Barnet team got a thrashing at the weekend - 7-0 at Crewe. Never afraid to speak his mind, Stimmo said afterwards: “I apologise to our fans. I’ve told the players they have to put some cash back in their pockets. That was not acceptable.”
I wonder if that could take off. Players regularly dipping in their wallets to pay for the fans if they put in a bad performance. But should the manager take some of the blame as well?? After all, he signed these players. If players had to start paying for bad shifts then surely it would only be fair if it happened in all forms of work. Would that mean I would have to give our newspaper readers a refund if I make a spelling mistake!? It could prove very costly.
Not only were there problems on the pitch on Saturday, there were also issues in the press box. We used to have proper plastic cups for half-time bovril etc, but now are resigned to thin ones, which need stacking four deep to avoid burning your hands. And, as the chap next to me found out, they are clearly not wind resistant.
Luckily the table was level and it remained in a puddle. Testament to the builder of that Medway Stand (one of whom worked the PA system during the pre-season friendly at Concord Rangers. He was quite chuffed by that “claim-to-fame” and I was quite chuffed at his levelling skills). But anyway, I expect that same puddle to have turned to mould by the time Gills are next at home. I look forward to seeing if Martin (press officer) has been out with a cloth - which I doubt.
If you are not going to Morecambe then you can follow all the action via our text service and get involved in a bit of light-hearted banter at the same time. It starts from 2.30pm on Saturday via the kentonline.co.uk/gillingham website.
Cheers for now, Luke.