OK let's get a few things straight: - There is absolutely no way you can put Hess' first spell in the top 5 worst Gills managers list - HE KEPT US IN MID-TABLE CHAMPIONSHIP FOR THREE SEASONS, and then kept us up for another. But of course after that we all know what happened. - Ternent, again you are smoking something dodgy if you think he is one of our worst managers. He adopted a dreadful team rock bottom of the table and very nearly achieved the miracle of keeping us up. Of course, he does lose points for walking out on us. I think for worst ever manager you have to look at who is really responsible for Gills' decline, and fall from Championship only-just-relegated team to League 2 fodder. For me that "honour" has to fall to Neale Cooper. There is no reason why we couldn't go back up that season, but Cooper signed some truly dreadful players and set us on the road to League 2. By the end of 04-05 our defence was rock solid but Cooper undid all of that. Jepson showed later on that season that we had some good players and could have got somewhere with better management - remember the 6 consecutive victories that kept us up. Jepson had the shred of common sense to realise "If we sign a decent winger for the right flank (Tommy Black) as well as having Jarvis on the left, then we can score a hatful of goals". He also had the common sense to realise that an 85 year-old Andy Hessenthaler was not the solution to our midfield problems. Of course as it turned out Jepson wasn't nearly good enough either, but Cooper was the one responsible for starting the decline and setting the trend.
