Just like the Ultimate XI feed I made, I want to see everyone's take on the worse players to ever don the Gills Shirt. If you want to put on subs then you are more than welcome to. Same rules apply in that they have to be since your time as a Gills fan. Heres my Gills Worst XI GK: Kelvin Jack (Most pointless Goalie ever signed, only played 9 times even then didn't look particularly good) RB: Matt Lawrence (this is for Lawrence playing at RB, perfectly decent at CB, too slow & positioning was awful at Right Back) CB: Tony Sinclair (Might be being harsh but I don't think he was up to league standard) CB: Adam Bygrave (Looked decent in warmups. Very uneasy in matches, not surprising he's playing low down in non-league) LB: Craig Armstrong (One of the many flops Jepson signed) RM: Barry Cogan (Might be a bit harsh on him but never looked particularly confident and capable enough for League One. Signed by Jepson ofc) CM: Adam Miller (Some people loved him, I hated him. Everytime I saw him play in a Gills shirt he played awful, never saw him make a slide tackle) CM: Stuart Thurgood (First signed was decent but quickly detoriated and obviously suffered that horrible injury) LM: Aaron Brown (Jepson signing, never committed & fell out with Stimson) ST: Paul Shields (Signed by Neale Cooper. Should have stayed in Scotland) ST: Steven Hislop (Yes you've guessed it, a Jepson signing. Again should have stayed in Scotland) Some of my picks may have been a bit harsh on a couple of players but the team wouldn't look out of place in the Conference South or Ryman Premier. Enjoy picking your worst teams!
Wouldnt argue with many here, but personally I thought Miller was a good player, (as you say he was a proper marmite player loved and hated in equal measure), also in my opinion we have had many worse players than Lawrence and Shields who I think was just injured too much, and as such never really got a chance, I know my selection of Mulligan up front will probably be unpopular as he was one of those players the crowd always supported despite there being so little end product to his headless chicken impresssion. My worst 11 - GK - Scott Flinders LB- Craig Armstrong CB - Brendan Place CB - Paul Hague RB - Barry Miller MID - Steve Lomas MID - Stuart Thurgood WIDE MID - Barry Cogan WIDE MID - Aaron Brown FWD - Steve Hislop FWD - Gary Mulligan Manager - Mike Flanagan
I had not realised that Pegleg admired Jepson so much. Given that the club was penniless at that time, that he did not have a regular goalie at all and that he started from the bottom 3 of league 1, he must have been one hell of a good manager to achieve mid table league 1 for two successive seasons with all those hopeless players that Pegleg has identified. Nobody has come near that record since. i will treat him with new respect and AshfordGill provides even more evidence of the tat that Jepson was lumbered with. What a managerial icon he must have been or could it just be that they were not quite as bad as everyone thought?
You make a great point, maybe from our championship seasons we had got used to seeing players of the quality of Paul Shaw, Rod Wallace, Marlon King, Carl Asaba, Chris Hope...etc, and those that followed quite closely behind these have more to live up to. In theory the worst players to play for the club in my time are those who played regularly in the dark times of the early 90s when we finished 21st, 16th and 19th in the 3rd division, but many of the players from that era I regard amongst my personal favourites and the likes of Tony Butler, Neil Smith and Richard Green featured in both these teams and Tony Pulis promotion winners from 1996, so yes bristol you are probably right, Jemson wasn't that bad a manager, and some of these players aren't as bad as they seemed at the time, (except for Steve Lomas).
My worse XI GK: Mark McCammon LB: Mark McCammon CB: Mark McCammon CB: Mark McCammon RB: Mark McCammon LM: Mark McCammon CM: Mark McCammon CM: Mark McCammon RM: Mark McCammon FW: Mark McCammon FW: Mark McCammon Enough said!
Like I said in the thread the worse players you have seen in a Gills shirt since you have been a fan. I have only been fortunate enough to be a fan of the Gills since Jan 2003, when we were at our peak in the football league. The players then were still better than what Jepson had signed. Every manager since Jepson has least been able to make signings of which have looked good players. OK there have been the odd one or two that haven't done particularly well but I can only name three players that Jepson signed who I was happy with their service to the club and that was Royce, Bentley and obviously King. Also at no point did I personally slate Jepson' managerial skills throughout my thread. His eye for players was however not as good as the other managers I have witnessed at the helm. Also the point of which he had no money to sign players isn't completely valid. He was given £300,000 to spend on players in one season and spent £200k of it on Simon King. He then brought in the likes of Armstrong, Brown, Lomas, Cogan, Graham, Facey all of which were given high reputations but failed to deliver (especially Cogan who was signed to replace Jarvis). The point of the thread is to pick the worse players you've seen. Its not particularly my fault that Jepson signed most of them.
The conclusion to your statement has to be that with such crap signings but maintaining a mid table position he must have been a thoroughly competent manager. And if his successors signed better players but could get nowhere near a mid table position in league 1 then they were not fit to lick Jepson's boots....unless those Jepson signings were not quite so crap as you think.
Like I said at no point did I slate Jepson's managerial skills, however in the fact that those players mainly contributed in the club being relegated that season and haven't been able to find teams in the football league since leaving the Gills im sure proves that they were very good players. And most of the squad that carried us in League One were mainly the reserves and younger players which had already been bled into the team by Hessenthaler and Ternant.
