Valentine’s Day matches 14/02/23

[joethegill]

Our poor performance has meant the refs performance went under the radar but it was utterly bizarre.

When it went 1-0 Gills slowed the game right down which he was all for, went 1-1 and he rushed our players at every chance, 2-1 up he did absolutely nothing about time wasting again. Ruined any flow of the game by giving any contact as a foul and topped it off by allowing the ball to be in play for around 30 seconds of the 5 mins added on. Woeful.

Crap from us though and if we don’t capitalise on our games in hand we’re in trouble. Which makes our owners gloating on twitter at fans who criticised our window after Crewe even more bizarre.

I didn't think the ref was that bad in fairness, but did notice your bench getting very excited every time he made a decision either way. I also can't blame him for giving a lot of fouls as, frankly, the vast majority of them were. How your centre back got to 90 minutes before his yellow card was a bit odd, he couldn't compete for the ball without clobbering someone.

 

[BarraMatt]

Simpson must've had one of those apparently famous "we can't afford to go up" bollockings from the Carlisle board recently.

 

[Soup Ladle]

If it was legal here to bring a fat lady to my house (that I'm not married to), I would invite one now and tell her to get singing.

 

[Kendalcufc]

Simpson must've had one of those apparently famous "we can't afford to go up" bollockings from the Carlisle board recently.

Maybe not the affording to go up excuse but John Nixon would lose his FA perks of being the League Two representative if we won promotion and I wouldn't be surprised by anything that slimy toad would do to boost his own agenda.

 

[RiftHouseLad]

If it was legal here to bring a fat lady to my house (that I'm not married to), I would invite one now and tell her to get singing.

Look weve just signed Clarkey, So all is not lost,lol

 

[Carver]

Maybe not the affording to go up excuse but John Nixon would lose his FA perks of being the League Two representative if we won promotion and I wouldn't be surprised by anything that slimy toad would do to boost his own agenda.

You'd think that if he's the FA L2 guy then we'd get all the favours and referee decisions all go our way, yet he can't even do that for us.

 

[BarraMatt]

You'd think that if he's the FA L2 guy then we'd get all the favours and referee decisions all go our way, yet he can't even do that for us.

You can't blame him though, League One football or a cushy golfing weekend down in Surrey with the gents?

 

[Son of Cod]

Cheers my fishy friend.
Just as a side, when we found out that your mascot had been banned from attending the Southampton cup game, our club got on the phone and invited him down last night.
He paraded around the pitch and even went in the Rainham End for a bit.
Premier League? Shove it up your arse!

Haha, I didn't realise you'd done that. That's a nice touch. There's a lot of talk about us taking all other types of inflatables now as the Southampton statement specifcially stated we aren't allowed to take Harry Haddock inflatables. They've created a rod for their own back essentially.

Thought we played quite well in the 2nd half last night, put together some good moves and only some decent goalkeeping stopped us scoring a couple more. I love Nichols ability to find space in a crowded area, it's something you just can't teach a player and it's going to get him a lot of goals I hope.

I was a bit concerned when we made the double change after scoring the first, it seemed too early to bring off Lapslie as he was playing well and causing problems - I probably would've preferred to stick with the same 11 that had started the 2nd half so well and try to get the 2nd goal to kill the game earlier. That said, who doesn't love a late winner?

First half was a write off, not a lot happened other than the Grimsby full back trying to get himself sent off, presumably just through boredom.

Yeah, a couple of good saves from Crocombe. What you did well was continuing to pile the pressure on after the latest of those saves. You hemmed us in and just kept launching it in. Must have faced a good 3/4 corners in the 5-10 minutes building up to your winner. Agree on Nichols too, he'll be a key player for you...that ability to find space will create goals for other players too.

A relief to get the win last night. Not a great performance, particularly in the first half, but results are what matter, more than ever.

Really pleased for Hawkins too. He gets isolated up front but usually puts himself about and seems to boss most defenders. Ironically, last night he was losing more headers than usual but, for once, one of our full backs delivered a great cross and he got on the end of it.

The Grimsby full back did seem to launch himself at McKenzie, which I thought normally means not being in control and should mean a red card. A bit of a grey area so maybe yellow was adequate but apparently he kicked the ball away a few minutes later so he was lucky not to get two yellows.

Yep, Hawkins up against Waterfall was always gonna be a key battle. Think I said that before the match and I think Waterfall bossed him in the main, but one slip up from the defender in this scenario and that's the battle lost. Fair play to Hawkins too, he's had one chance and he's buried. Was a great header.

Our poor performance has meant the refs performance went under the radar but it was utterly bizarre.

When it went 1-0 Gills slowed the game right down which he was all for, went 1-1 and he rushed our players at every chance, 2-1 up he did absolutely nothing about time wasting again. Ruined any flow of the game by giving any contact as a foul and topped it off by allowing the ball to be in play for around 30 seconds of the 5 mins added on. Woeful.

Crap from us though and if we don’t capitalise on our games in hand we’re in trouble. Which makes our owners gloating on twitter at fans who criticised our window after Crewe even more bizarre.

I didn't think the ref was that bad in fairness, but did notice your bench getting very excited every time he made a decision either way. I also can't blame him for giving a lot of fouls as, frankly, the vast majority of them were. How your centre back got to 90 minutes before his yellow card was a bit odd, he couldn't compete for the ball without clobbering someone.

Unsurprisingly, I'm with Lew on the ref. I thought he just blew for absolutely every niggly little thing. could have let some things slide. I think there were poor decisions on both sides, but more went against us. There was one in the second half when Clifton was away and into the Gills box and has hacked down and it wasn't a yellow. I can't get my head around that. He had the space to cross the ball from inside the box, it's a clear yellow. I got to the match late so I missed the Glennon decision but sounds like it should have been a red. There were some absolutely mind boggling throw ins given the wrong way and corners not given too. One particular, I think Maher it possibly was, shanked a clearance out of play in the second half and it curled out and back onto the pitch without bouncing and he gave us a throw...I must have missed something there but I don't seem to recall seeing a Gills player even challenge him. But I'm not complaining too much as Gillingham fully deserved the win.

 

[Son of Cod]

Crap from us though and if we don’t capitalise on our games in hand we’re in trouble. Which makes our owners gloating on twitter at fans who criticised our window after Crewe even more bizarre.

Oh yeah and on this, the smugness directed at the fans who criticised the window strategy after the Crewe/Luton games was ridiculous. It's probably going to carry on throughout the season every time Lloyd/Dickson-Peters/O'Neill scores or has a stinker. I'm staying out of it personally, but it was a shite window. We know that mate, that's what counts.

 

[Kauto Star]

That was painful. We started out ok until Morris went off, but once Bradford scored, we were never coming back from it. After tonight, teams must have learned by now to shoot on sight against us, as our keeper is shall we say not the most proficient at his job (with that second goal being the latest in what's now a long list of howlers in his handful of games in goal). I don't even want to criticise the lad, he's obviously not ready for league two football and has been thrown in way over his head. Anyway, Bradford were boring, which was all they had to be. If they'd have tried, they'd have won five nil, but they were happy to be boring. We wouldn't have scored if we played til Christmas. Again...

Impressed with Ethan Bristow last night. Other than that I was surprised how poor your lot were. Your keeper especially looked dodgy

We weren't great by any stretch, but it was still a very comfortable win for us in second gear.

Some of our fans are impatient idiots though, booing Adam Clayton, who controlled the midfield last night and was named man of the match, when he passed backwards but retained possession on one occasion.

Good luck for rest of season

 

[GTFCfish]

Haha, I didn't realise you'd done that. That's a nice touch. There's a lot of talk about us taking all other types of inflatables now as the Southampton statement specifcially stated we aren't allowed to take Harry Haddock inflatables. They've created a rod for their own back essentially.

Yeah, a couple of good saves from Crocombe. What you did well was continuing to pile the pressure on after the latest of those saves. You hemmed us in and just kept launching it in. Must have faced a good 3/4 corners in the 5-10 minutes building up to your winner. Agree on Nichols too, he'll be a key player for you...that ability to find space will create goals for other players too.

Yep, Hawkins up against Waterfall was always gonna be a key battle. Think I said that before the match and I think Waterfall bossed him in the main, but one slip up from the defender in this scenario and that's the battle lost. Fair play to Hawkins too, he's had one chance and he's buried. Was a great header.



Unsurprisingly, I'm with Lew on the ref. I thought he just blew for absolutely every niggly little thing. could have let some things slide. I think there were poor decisions on both sides, but more went against us. There was one in the second half when Clifton was away and into the Gills box and has hacked down and it wasn't a yellow. I can't get my head around that. He had the space to cross the ball from inside the box, it's a clear yellow. I got to the match late so I missed the Glennon decision but sounds like it should have been a red. There were some absolutely mind boggling throw ins given the wrong way and corners not given too. One particular, I think Maher it possibly was, shanked a clearance out of play in the second half and it curled out and back onto the pitch without bouncing and he gave us a throw...I must have missed something there but I don't seem to recall seeing a Gills player even challenge him. But I'm not complaining too much as Gillingham fully deserved the win.

On the subject of them hemming us in Matt Dannatt Tweeted last night that teams pile on the pressure against us and we inevitably cave in, but we never do it the other way round, we put the same pressure on teams for 10 minutes or so and when they don’t cave in the pressure from us just stops and we give up, which sums us up pretty good right now.

 

[PuB]

How come away fans were allowed to move in to the scaffold stand SoC? Seemed odd to open it up for you once the game had already started.

Anyway I thought we were well worth the win against a good Grimsby side, we upped the pressure well after the equaliser and I thought our subs were spot on as Grimsby were getting the upper hand (even though they did actually equalise just after we’d made a couple of changes). I thought Lloyd was the better of your forward players and McAtee slightly off the pace.

Ref was poor for both sides although Glennon escaped a clear red early on.

 

[MWS]

Turnbull out injured. Jameson in to replace. Wonder if our failure to strengthen defence in the window will come back to haunt us. Hoping we can avoid a Valentines Day massacre…

To make matters worse you let us have Byrne who's been rock solid since signing.

 

[Son of Cod]

On the subject of them hemming us in Matt Dannatt Tweeted last night that teams pile on the pressure against us and we inevitably cave in, but we never do it the other way round, we put the same pressure on teams for 10 minutes or so and when they don’t cave in the pressure from us just stops and we give up, which sums us up pretty good right now.

Yeah, it's true. I wish he'd use Scannell more as he does that excellently. He relentlessly just tries to get the ball past the fullback and it serves as a really good way of piling the pressure on. Or I wish McAtee would drift out wide more than he does. We aren't going to exert pressure on teams like that with Efete and Glennon as wing backs in my opinion.

How come away fans were allowed to move in to the scaffold stand SoC? Seemed odd to open it up for you once the game had already started.

Anyway I thought we were well worth the win against a good Grimsby side, we upped the pressure well after the equaliser and I thought our subs were spot on as Grimsby were getting the upper hand (even though they did actually equalise just after we’d made a couple of changes). I thought Lloyd was the better of your forward players and McAtee slightly off the pace.

Ref was poor for both sides although Glennon escaped a clear red early on.

No idea mate, I had a mare getting there. Left work in London (about a 20mins walk to St Pancras) at 4:45pm and didn't get to the ground until 8:20pm. The trains were absolute chaos. By the time I got there, they were only letting people onto the scaffold for some reason, which seemed odd as there were spare seats but didn't look like there were enough for everyone. There might have been some bigger groups that wanted to stand together and couldn't really do it without obstructing the view of others maybe? I generally don't like two different pockets of fans like that but it worked in that the people in the covered area got to sit down and the people who wanted to stand went in the open stand. I thought the noise between the two little bits carried better than I thought it would too. Probably due to a lack of wind. Not that we made a great deal though, very flat away fans last night.

Oh and one other thing, not a fan of goal music really but if you're gonna do it then Zombie Nation isn't a bad shout at all! Probably the best choice of goal music. Also, excuse my ignorance but what was that old sad song that got played at full time?

 

[AdamStag]

There’s no need for gillingham fans to worry about relegation for me, whereas we won out on saturday there was enough about them to show that performance was maybe not what they offering against other teams and should be fine

 

[PuB]

Yeah, it's true. I wish he'd use Scannell more as he does that excellently. He relentlessly just tries to get the ball past the fullback and it serves as a really good way of piling the pressure on. Or I wish McAtee would drift out wide more than he does. We aren't going to exert pressure on teams like that with Efete and Glennon as wing backs in my opinion.

No idea mate, I had a mare getting there. Left work in London (about a 20mins walk to St Pancras) at 4:45pm and didn't get to the ground until 8:20pm. The trains were absolute chaos. By the time I got there, they were only letting people onto the scaffold for some reason, which seemed odd as there were spare seats but didn't look like there were enough for everyone. There might have been some bigger groups that wanted to stand together and couldn't really do it without obstructing the view of others maybe? I generally don't like two different pockets of fans like that but it worked in that the people in the covered area got to sit down and the people who wanted to stand went in the open stand. I thought the noise between the two little bits carried better than I thought it would too. Probably due to a lack of wind. Not that we made a great deal though, very flat away fans last night.

Oh and one other thing, not a fan of goal music really but if you're gonna do it then Zombie Nation isn't a bad shout at all! Probably the best choice of goal music. Also, excuse my ignorance but what was that old sad song that got played at full time?

All your fans were in the covered area until after the game started, it should have been open for people to choose where to sit before the game in my opinion, or just leave it closed. Didn’t see any issues there before then so it was slightly odd when people started to move about, like you said it split your fans and you can’t make much noise in the open air.

Not a fan of goal music either but you’re right it’s a banger, the song at the end was the Last Waltz, I don’t mind it personally but let the fans sing their own more up tempo version first (which they did but it might have been drowned out).

 

[Son of Cod]

All your fans were in the covered area until after the game started, it should have been open for people to choose where to sit before the game in my opinion, or just leave it closed. Didn’t see any issues there before then so it was slightly odd when people started to move about, like you said it split your fans and you can’t make much noise in the open air.

Not a fan of goal music either but you’re right it’s a banger, the song at the end was the Last Waltz, I don’t mind it personally but let the fans sing their own more up tempo version first (which they did but it might have been drowned out).

Oh yeah that's weird in that case then, I figured we'd filled the covered bit and it was overspill. I could have been the standing up thing maybe, if people were sat at the back and the late stragglers wanted to stand only had space at the front. If that's the case then fair play on your stewards. I know just from the people that were in the open end that there were quite a few hardcores that always stand no matter where they are and it does sometimes rile the older lot a bit.

Aaaah okay, there was a chant that I couldn't place last night so that would have been it. Also explains THE LAST WALTZ's username, thanks! Your Status Quo/Rocking All Over the World reworking was a good one, couldn't pick up what the exact words were but it sounded good. I wish we had that one in our catalogue.

Barring some terrible/miraculous form we'll both be in L2 again next season and I'll be coming back unless it falls on a wedding or something similar. You also weren't wrong about there being much near the ground! Will probably do the Rochester idea next season, not that it was relevant yesterday anyway with the travel problems.

 

[ForzaCounty]

At least Forza is having a good time with Lola.

She wasn't what I was expecting; we kept tussling over who should be on top, eventually I managed to come from behind.

 

[Son of Cod]

There’s no need for gillingham fans to worry about relegation for me, whereas we won out on saturday there was enough about them to show that performance was maybe not what they offering against other teams and should be fine

I get the impression they're not fully clicking yet and will be one of the better teams in the division in the latter third. I'm waiting for the odds for next season to come out as I'm gonna be seeing what they say about Gillingham early doors.

 

[E10rifle]

1Ha, nearly Jonahed it didn’t I? Dale came out with considerably more purpose, but no real quality outside of a lovely goal. Owed more to Orient dropping our levels than Dale greatly improving. Good night for us again…

Turns out that we’ve got a sickness bug going through the camp which is why everyone was dropping like flies in the second half. Even more pleased with the result now.

 

[RLC]

I did not think there was anything between the sides in general play last night, but we are toothless in the eighteen yard box and our new goalkeeper is suspect. Hewelt gifted Bradford their second goal in a period when we were well on top and they were getting anxious.

If Cook was playing for us we would have won the game. Bradford were pretty average throughout, but with a prolific goalscorer in your side you always have a chance.

 

[AdamStag]

I get the impression they're not fully clicking yet and will be one of the better teams in the division in the latter third. I'm waiting for the odds for next season to come out as I'm gonna be seeing what they say about Gillingham early doors.

Gillingham and stockport good bets next season (if the latter is still down) with the possibility of wrexham and notts county coming up it could be a bloody tough league next year.

 

[Boz]

To make matters worse you let us have Byrne who's been rock solid since signing.

Byrne was one of those signings that just didn’t work for us. Don’t know why, he was steady at Pools and doing a good job with Stocky, where DC knows how to get the best out of him.

 

[Son of Cod]

Gillingham and stockport good bets next season (if the latter is still down) with the possibility of wrexham and notts county coming up it could be a bloody tough league next year.

I've said it before and I'll no doubt say it again but Wrexham won't be steamrollering this division with Parkinson in charge and I wouldn't be surprised at all if the playoff winner isn't the team that finishes 2nd or 3rd. The one legged higher finishing team format sounds like it favours the 2nd to 5th in theory, but I reckon Notts and Wrexham would have stood a better chance vs us last season over two legs.

 

[loz]

I did not think there was anything between the sides in general play last night, but we are toothless in the eighteen yard box and our new goalkeeper is suspect. Hewelt gifted Bradford their second goal in a period when we were well on top and they were getting anxious.

If Cook was playing for us we would have won the game. Bradford were pretty average throughout, but with a prolific goalscorer in your side you always have a chance.

You're being kind. It was an awful game between 2 awful sides. A lot of puff but little skill.

 

[RiftHouseLad]

She wasn't what I was expecting; we kept tussling over who should be on top, eventually I managed to come from behind.

Tactics were used, Didn,t know you had it in you/her/him..lol

 

[Stocky]

I've said it before and I'll no doubt say it again but Wrexham won't be steamrollering this division with Parkinson in charge and I wouldn't be surprised at all if the playoff winner isn't the team that finishes 2nd or 3rd. The one legged higher finishing team format sounds like it favours the 2nd to 5th in theory, but I reckon Notts and Wrexham would have stood a better chance vs us last season over two legs.

I think both would/will do well. They're both on for well over 100 points in the NL and both have the finance to keep their best players and look to improve.

 

[Carver]

Gillingham and stockport good bets next season (if the latter is still down) with the possibility of wrexham and notts county coming up it could be a bloody tough league next year.

Will be even tougher if we somehow don't go up this year.

 

[hellogregory]

Will be even tougher if we somehow don't go up this year.

Traditionally when we miss out on playoffs we flog or fail to keep all our decent players then end up in a relegation battle the following season.

 

[BlackHaddock]

I didn't think the ref was that bad in fairness, but did notice your bench getting very excited every time he made a decision either way. I also can't blame him for giving a lot of fouls as, frankly, the vast majority of them were. How your centre back got to 90 minutes before his yellow card was a bit odd, he couldn't compete for the ball without clobbering someone.

Isn't it funny how football supporters see a game so differently. I thought your rather tall and large team seemed to hit the ground far to easily and the ref was happy to give you a free kick every time.