Over 24 hours since we took a huge step towards promotion and the title! A game which I felt we hands down deserved to win. In actual fact I was pleasantly surprised with just how poor Rotherham were, after all they were pre-season favorites to win the division! The stats on BBC Sport show that we had nine shots on target compared to Rotherham's four so if anyone believes Rotherham deserved something out of the game you need to visit spec savers! Yesterday's result means that if we beat Torquay on Saturday and two out of Rotherham, Northampton and Burton Albion fail to win, we are promoted! Please let it be Saturday! I don't believe for one second that Saturday will be a stroll in the park, far from it actually with Torquay needing the points to get away from the relegation zone! However if we play like we did yesterday we will win and most probably win comfortably! These are exciting times to be a Gillingham fan, so lets make the most of it!! Up the Gills
After two seasons of utter dross and inept management the real messiah has taken us to the top. Pray silence for Martin Allen. The funny thing is many of you were moaning that Hessy should of been given another season, how wrong you all were. You know who you are.....
brb- I'm sure you remember the poll at the end of last season.... Hessy IN = 21 v Hessy OUT 3 From memory bristol407, WINDYROG were very pro hessy!!! I allso remember being asked to be more constructive and get behind Hessy for the next season.
Yes, I'm being smug brb. Lets be honest if that straw poll had its way we would of had another season of mid table mediocrity. Despite being in the minority and taking a bit of a bashing for my views last season its good to know.....I was right!!! I think the God thread should wait until the end of the season. UTG.
I didn't want MA. Said he was cheap and the last choice. Believed the chairman had cheaped out and brought in a low pay plank who would take us no where. I moaned when he signed his boy up and let Barry Fuller go. And then the games began. And he impressed me, game after game, week after week he got better. His post game press where he said time and time again that he wanted no praise and it was all the players. His picking up fans on the team coach. Sending Malcom to do the team talk. Writing news stories thanking the tea lady. His rants on the touchline and he sheer bloody single minded determination to seal the points. Martin Allen, should you ever lurk onto Not606 to see what us fans think, you are a legend. Give us that league title and Mad Dogs Barmy Army will be inked on my body forever more.
Yes I was pro Hessy and still feel that he always had the best interests of the club at heart. Finding a decent manager at the lower levels of football, as we know, has proved difficult over the years and we have to go back to the Pulis / Taylor era for success and excitement. Sometimes it can be the 'devil you know' syndrome that makes you want to stick with what you have......and in all honesty Hessy only just missed the mark on two successive occasions. Hessy is still at the club he loves and MA inherited that core group of players and instilled backbone, passion, fitness and a never give up mentality. He then added the cutting edge and stability required to maintain a certain standard. There are teams out there that would welcome Hessy's level of failure... but MA has turned it on its head and given us a team to be rightly proud of. In an earlier post (months ago) I thanked MA for giving us our club back with the areas that Throwoff refers to: the club identity, the involvement of the 'off the wall' characters and his 'message' page. The difference has been whereas Hessy served the club (honourably), MA has led the club....and done a very good job. I am not going to say that I was wrong in my sentiments in the poll to keep Hessy,(at that time there was nothing but names pulled out of a hat being bandied about) and I am entitled to my own opinion. However, I am more than willing to say that MA has done (until now) a superb job and will rightly take his place amongst those (few) names that have brought success to the Gills. Unlike some.........I do not claim to be 'Alwaysright'.......
but there can only be one of me ------I can hear you all breathing a collective sigh of relief ! by the way - when I started that marathon 'New Manager' thread last summer I did quote Martin Allen's name in the post. < I just can't help being alwaysright >
throwoff and WINDYROG - loving the replies lads. Almost brought a tear to my eye. At last a manager we can all agree on (other than brb, who will still moan about his youth policy!!).
Oh I would be the first to plead guilty in preferring Hessy to Allen and everything that has happened this season has reinforced that opinion. No disrespect to Allen for doing a decent job this season but frankly anyone who saw Gills dismantle Swindon at the end of last season knew that it would take a monumental cock up to fail to deliver auto promotion this time round. To Allen's credit, he has regularly paid tribute to the quality of what he inherited, but the real difference this year comes from the clearout of Dimson leftovers, some of whom were sadly too injured to be of use but several of whom should never have been there in the first place. Anyone who was lucky enough to witness those four successive years of Championship football, when Gills did not just survive but thrived in midtable with a paltry budget, will know just how amazing that achievement was and I doubt if it will ever be emulated. The credit rests fully with Hessy and it dwarfs the achievement of any predecessor or successor. The achievements of Hessy at Dover were remarkable. Yes non league is different, and it can be harder than Football League especially at a place like Dover which was in free fall when he went there. As manager Hessy won 2 out of every 3 games, a truly iconic statistic which is rarely recognised. Moving on to seasons 10/11 and 11/12 there was no shame in being a sliver off the playoffs in two successive seasons. Remember what he inherited...top salary for MacCammon in the playing staff just about sums it up and a sick note culture, some justified a few doubtful. Just contrast that to what Allen inherited, the dross removed and money falling out of scally's pockets and more coaches than Kings Ferry. Time may prove me wrong but taking account of the circumstances, Hessys achievements stand well above those of Allen. Of course the monumental gulf in achievements between these two is youth policy. Lenny seems to think this is something to do with average ages of the team or maximising performance when in reality for a team like Gills it is the complete opposite. To keep the team afloat requires a steady stream of transfer income. Since 2000, the club has survived on the income, directly or indirectly from Moron King, Matt Jarvis,Luke Freeman,Ryan Bertrand, Simeon Jackson, gazza etc. All save Jackson were signed by Hessy and to be successful the club needs a procession of youngsters progressing through the ranks so that maybe 1 in 4 eventually earns a fee. They will only earn a fee if they are young enough to improve at a higher level. in a Hessy squad we usually have half a dozen in this category. Under Allen we have Dack, Fish and maybe Allen junior. Maybe they will all come good but at the moment the 2014/15 transfers out pot looks a bit thin. Anyway, well done to Martin Allen for now. Excellent away form, mediocre at home, pitiful for entertainment in Nov-Feb but fans will tolerate that when the team is top. Let us hope that one day he gets Gills to the Championship when he might be able to warrant real comparison with a legend.
Biggest difference between Hess and Allen, IMHO, is the backroom staff. Hess did pretty much everything on his own. Allen has a very good support team with him. Has this played a part in this seasons success? I have no doubt it has. Also let's not forget that Hess has had a part to play this season too. At the end of the day all I care about is the Gills, like you all, and what's best for us all as a whole. No manager will ever be perfect but we should back whoever is in charge (unless they be corrupt, racist, fascist etc).
I'm sure Sunderland fans won't worry about politics if a fascist keeps them in the EPL. I'm not particularly a fan of Alex Fergusson ( as a person ) - but you cannot deny that he has a deadly eye when it comes to throwing hairdryers. Football is all about results - doesn't matter whose in charge.
Quiet an interesting comment there alwaysright - To which I agree to a certain extent. Funny all of a sudden just because he becomes a Premier League manager that the media what to run certain stories. A bit like where with homophobic remarks there was comments on SKY News yesterday about using cameras to single out certain supporters. I've always expressed my concerns with the media and what ever the rights and wrongs, nothing has changed that opinion.
His backroom team are amazing, a massive part of this, I do wonder if when Allen goes (and lets hope that is a good time away and at least 1 more promotion!) who of them will go with. Could we see Malcolm moving onto pastures new?!
MA has exceeded my wildest expectations of what he and his team would achieve this season. And he's done it with a smile and never pointed the finger at players, fans, opposition or referees. He is quirky, outspoken, opinionated, entertaining and talented. I think we can all remember the 'angst' that pervaded our whole club last year after the failure to reach the play-offs again, the length of time without a manager and any signings plus the whole McCammon & racism saga in the media. There was a lot of nastiness around. But MA has managed to completely turn around the way most of us (and probably outsiders?) feel about our club.Top man. If he/we manage to secure the title, he will truly go down as a club legend. The first title in 50 years. I also would not denigrate anything that Hess achieved. Different managers, different circumstances etc. He was and is a club legend, he bleeds blue blood. And he has had way more success with Gills than any other person in history, as a player, as a manager, and now as 'back room staff'. I am personally delighted that both these men have been connected with Gillingham Football Club.
Agree 100%, without Hess there would have been no Cody loan and I reckon a fair few others would not have been here. Hess has a great eye for a player and having that in the boardroom helps. You see some signings (Torres to Chelsea springs to mind!) where you know the choice was made by a business mind not a football one. good t have that football brain next to the chairman when he is signing cheques.
I don't want to be seen as a Hess basher but I feel that there is a lot of romantacism surrounding Hess and Gillingham. As a player Hess, no arguement has to be amongst the most talented players to pull on a blue (or red) shirt, but as a manager he clearly had/has some flaws. Yes he did manage the most successful spell in the clubs history, but if Allen's achievements are downgraded due to inheiritng a "good" squad the same must be said for the team Hess he recieved from Pulis/Taylor. We may have reached the pinnacle of the club's achievement with Hess but we also began the slow spiral downwards that lead the club's to return to the basement division. In his first spell at the club Hess failed to maintain the quality of the squad, we lost amazing talents in Smith, Hess, Iffy et al under his tenure which he simply couldn't replace. It is ironic that then that Hess was the manager who stablised the club on his return and was the force tha brought the club and the fans back together. However he second spell has to be classified as a failure, the "anything but promotion will be a failure" statement holds true, we weren't promoted under Hess despite a large financial backing from Scally. He did do a lot for the club though, steadied the helm and no doubt brought in some good players which Allen has benefited from, but Hess simply could not get the team to play at a higher enough level consistantly enough to gain promotion. Yes we saw the potential in the odd game (Bristol mentioned the Swindon game) but to often we came up wanting on the pitch under Hess. Now under Allen we are promoted, does that mean he is "better" than Hess? Hard to say as we all stand on the shoulders of giants. However I think Allen was the right man for the job, Hess had taken the club as far as he could and it was the right time for him to go upstairs. Allen should be congratulated for his success without his acheievments being belittled but it would be unfair not to acknowledge Hess' role in the process as well
BSG you are absolutely on the money. Hessy was an ineffective manager that never got us promoted and was lucky enough to take over an excellent squad at his first attempt. Unfortunately he then left when things got tough. MA is clearly head and shoulders above Hessy and his record managing a proper team is far better.
Have some of you forgotten the last season under Hess ? The tiredness of the players halfway through a game, his lack of ideas when things were going wrong, his strange use of subs, and dont forget the amount of injuries that seemed to be due to lack of training. Yes, he brought in Cody and Tomlin and can be applauded for that but he didn't achieve promotion and even if he had his lack of tactical nous would have had us struggle. Towards the end of last season I wanted us to fail to get to the playoffs because I didn't want him to continue as manager. To say it's difficult to manage in non league is ridiculous. Both Hess and Stimson were successful there but couldn't cut it in the leagues. I put on here and on other boards that MA should be the manager and I'm glad he has. Hess is a legend and obviously loves the club , and he did extremely well to keep us in the Championship all those years ago, but at the end of the day that old football adage "never go back" seems in his case to have been true.
