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Richard
1154 Posts |
 Posted - 22 Apr 2012 : 00:11:54
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Swindon limped over the line - a 3-1 reverse at Priestfield this afternoon not stopping the scenes of celebration in the away end as results elsewhere meant that promotion back to League One was secured at the first attempt.
Of course, we wouldn’t do it the easy way - after the shenanigans during the week, and today’s revelations that other players that had been involved and would miss out today, di Canio made EIGHT changes to the side that started at Aldershot last week - only Caddis, McCormack and Risser keeping their places in the starting eleven. Despite all the changes, it still looked a pretty impressive line-up - just goes to show what strength in depth we have, and how much the manager has been backed this year.
The Town started the game impressively - and for the first 25 minutes, they were camped in the Gillingham half, searching for the opening goal. They made their intentions clear in the first minute - Oliver Risser striking a dipping effort that the keeper couldn’t hold - soon after, a purposeful run from Caddis saw him slip in Connell, and his dangerous ball across goal was cleared away.
With ten minutes on the clock, another break forward saw John Bostock play a ball through to Alan Connell, only for former Town loanee Andy Frampton to bring the move to a halt with a handball - Frampton was rightly booked, but with Connell through on goal, there was perhaps an argument that he could have gone - the Gills fans were already up in arms about their perceived injustices. Caddis took the free-kick short to Bostock, but his low shot went just wide of the post.
The Town’s cross-field passes were causing problems for the Gills, but the final delivery just wasn’t quite getting there - a Risser through-ball for Holmes was just cut out, just before a superb Bostock ball found Connell, whose scissored effort went straight at the keeper. Playing in behind the lone front man, Bostock was absolutely superb throughout today.
It seemed as though it was surely just a matter of time before we would open the scoring... that was until Gillingham did it themselves with their first meaningful foray into the Town half. Up until this point, the only effort the Gills had mustered was a wild effort from Danny Kedwell that almost hit the policemen standing high above the corner flag - and there seemed little danger when a cross from the Town’s right side was headed away for a throw on the far side. A giant throw was launched into the box, Kedwell got up to flick it on... and the ball looped over Smith into the far corner of the net. It was a bit surreal - like one of those slow motion moments - with seemingly no reaction from any of the Town players once Kedwell had made his connection, I didn’t think for a second that the ball was going in until the net bulged - it was an awful goal to concede.
The atmosphere in the away end seemed to change almost immediately - there were a couple of shouts of “play your best team, di Canio”, all of a sudden, the general consensus seemed to be that we were playing ****, and an argument started at the back of the stand between a handful of fans that would continue for the rest of the game. To be honest, I couldn’t understand it - we had been the better of the two sides, we’d just been hit with a sucker punch.
Though we had lost the control that we had enjoyed before the goal, we created another couple of openings before the half was out - after a cross was cut out by Smith, a quick ball forward from the Town keeper found Bostock, he ran with the ball and played a ball into the area for Connell - his shot on the spin almost wrong-footing the keeper. Soon after, a corner was whipped in by Ritchie that seemed to cause problems in the Gills penalty area, but it was cleared away from under the bar.
With five minutes remaining of the half, di Canio decided to make a change - taking off Alan Connell to be replaced by Ronan Murray - this too didn’t go down well with the majority of the away support, and there were quite a few jeers... again, why can’t we wait until after the game to question? It did look to be an odd decision, I can only assume that di Canio had realised just how slow the Gillingham defence was, and he wanted to try and exploit that with Murray.
Just before the half-time break, the Gills almost doubled their lead. Some pedestrian defending allowed the Gills midfield to stream towards goal - when we did get the block in, the ball was only cleared as far as Lewis Montrose about twenty-five yards out - he smashed the ball first time towards goal, and it smacked off the top of the crossbar. Still the danger wasn’t clear though, and the ball got whipped back in to the Town area, where Kedwell met it with a header that went just wide.
Di Canio obviously wasn’t happy - he departed down the tunnel for the break clearly saying something to the travelling support, pointing to his head as he did so.... I had no idea what he was trying to say.
The second half started at a pace - and both sides created chances after winning the ball from their opponents - unfortunately for us, Gillingham’s was decisive. Within the opening two minutes, good work from Holmes and Bostock to steal the ball in the Gills half saw the latter slip in Lee Holmes - the Town winger went for power, but embarrassingly miscued his shot. Just five minutes later though, Risser had a bit of a mare - losing possession in his own half and then failing to win it back - Simon Ferry also tried to intervene, and though I thought he was fouled during his attempt to clear, play was allowed to continue... in any case, someone should have dealt with it. That’s not to take anything away from what followed - Gillingham midfielder Chris Whelpdale, who had skipped past the two Town players proceeded to lift a delicate chip over the head of Phil Smith and into the far corner for a fine finish. It seemed like the Gills had hardly bothered us, yet every little opening they had either ended in the net or hitting the woodwork. Give them their due, they were efficient.
Five minutes after the goal, Swindon nearly got back into it - after Bostock had been fouled, Matt Ritchie struck a low drive at goal, that bounced wickedly just yards from goal - Gills keeper Gazzaniga doing well to divert it wide. That was one of few highlights though - at the other end, Gillingham nearly scored again - more bad defending letting Whelpdale waltz through, and though he scuffed his effort, it wrong-footed Phil Smith but hit the outside of the post. By this point, we were showing very little attacking intent - we really had no physical presence up front. It felt like the Gills may go on to get more, and even though we knew the Torquay and Crawley results were going our way, the away end was flat - with the events of the last week, Shrewsbury seemingly catching up with us and the Town’s performance getting progressively worse, celebrating didn’t seem quite right.
All that was to change though with ten minutes left. News that Accrington Stanley had equalised against the Shrews sparked a few Town fans into song again, and a minute or two later, Alan McCormack made one of his trademark driving runs out of defence, performing a one-two with Jonathan Smith on the way, and then walloped a low drive into the corner of the net. Suddenly, the away end sprung into life - soon after, a Gabilondo cross to the near post found Murray, whose clipped effort at goal went wide.
That was the end of us as an attacking threat though - and after Whelpdale again caused Phil Smith problems with a drive that the Town keeper did well to turn around the post as the game entered injury time, they wrapped the points up with the last kick of the game - Whelpdale sending Smith the wrong way from the penalty spot after Jonathan Smith had felled Curtis Weston in the area.
That mattered little to the 1300 travelling fans though - with all of the Town’s challengers failing to win, the goal was greeted with almost as much celebration in the away end as in the home - soon scarves were waving and champagne corks were popping as the players danced on the pitch - and we sang as we walked back through the streets of Gillingham, holding up the traffic and mobbing Wes Foderingham in his car as we went. Happy days. |
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John_
ENG
1182 Posts |
Posted - 22 Apr 2012 : 10:07:28
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Cheers Richard for sorting my ticket out!
What a surreal afternoon indeed!
The most important fact as far as I'm concerned is if we beat Port Vale next Saturday - we're champions! Yipee!
I think I spent as much time on my phone looking at results from elsewhere than I did concentrating on the game in front of me. Perhaps in hindsight it wasn't a bad thing as it was generally- speaking a disappointing result.
Gillingham didn't impress me. We never made the most of our early possession and domination. We lacked that killer instinct. (I still don't know why Benson wasn't playing?) I agree that Bostock looked very lively and had a good game. Our wingers were slightly off the pace, Aden Flint has forgotten to time his jumps to win a header and McCormack and co were pinging some delightful passes out to the flanks.
The 2 freakish Gills goals either side of half-time were a real kick in the teeth and with news filtering through that Shrewsbury were winning it led to a rather sombre atmosphere for a while.
As for our 'support' I'm getting a bit sick and tired of being surrounded by ***ts. There was nearly a fight at Crewe last month involving one pissed-up lad and then yesterday it all spilled out of control again behind us. "I'm going to knock you out" and various other pleasantries were exchanged during the course of the match. I think next season I'm going in with the opposition fans.
On the pitch we were heading towards defeat. And then there was an amazing few minutes where everyones mood changed. Firstly Rich let me know that Accrington had equalised against the Shrews and whilst frantically trying to verify this (Did you know I win £600 if we win the league, I may have mentioned it recently) I noticed AFC Wimbledon had taken the lead against Torquay. Of course with my heart pounding I looked up as Alan McCormack set about a run from halfway - a nice 1-2 and smash the ball ends up in the bottom corner!
Wow! Live the dream!
Obviously we now had high hopes of getting something out of the game but we never really looked like equalising. A 2nd goal for AFC Wimbledon had all but confirmed our 'promotion' - even Crawley could only labour to a point at Dagenham.
I spent the last few minutes refreshing the live scores page on my phone making sure those Shrews hadn't got a winner! They hadn't! We even conceded an injury-time penalty, yet know one cared. As Richard alluded to, Gillingham's 3rd goal was celebrated just as much by the Town fans as the home support! I had to laugh at a home fan I caught glimpse of - He was giving it the big 'Come on' celebrating but then just stopped frozen when he got exactly the same 'posturing' back at him!
There was nice touch by the Gills P.A at full-time to announce we'd been promoted and thus followed on-pitch celebrations for the next 20/25 minutes. It felt strange, after a disappointing defeat to be celebrating like this but even so, results elsewhere had put us in this position.
All the players, Paolo and his staff, along with Wray, Watkins and even Andrew Fitton - who was spotted - came over and joined in with the celebrations.
Making our way back towards the station from the ground was great. The streets packed with Swindon fans in good voice and WHO do we literally bump into - Wes Foderingham of course - trying to drive through the throng and escape! He couldn't have timed it worse! I think Richard has got some footage of all this. He may have even got to touch 'the Wes' as well! I was too busy making a rolly at this stage.... (Okay I'd fainted in all the excitement). I don't think Wes would've been too impressed with some lads slapping the bonnet of his car! Eventually the police intervened and Wes was on his way. More fun ensued when we came across cars full of Gillingham fans stuck in the traffic, who let's face it were probably s***ing themselves. No eye contact from them, just blind panic and fear! Apparently they like to 'Stand up if you hate Swindon' which I'd heard sung a few times during the course of the match. Strangely enough, it'd all gone quiet now!
We got back to the station, cans of beverage in hand and had a jolly back to London and St Pancras/Victoria!
Full house against Port Vale please next week and the title confirmed.
Is that too much to ask for. |
Edited by - John_ on 22 Apr 2012 10:09:29 |
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Gillingham 3-1 Swindon Town
