Since Posh signed Jack Payne from the Gills I have been following his progress and performances. After a steady start (probably adjusting to the difference having jumped up 2 Divisions) he is now showing the qualities and putting in the performances proving why he is so highly rated by our Chairman and Manager. I know a lot of Gills fans were disappointed that he was allowed to leave on loan (this will without doubt be a permanent transfer at the end of the season) fearing the worst, yet your performances have hardly faltered. His last Gills game was in the defeat against Port Vale, since then Gills have played 12 games - 5 Wins 5 Draws 2 Defeats, still promotion form. Yes, your points per game average has dropped a little, but you only have 3 points less overall had you continued at the previous rate. I thought that when George Boyd left for Hull Posh would suffer, defeats by Birmingham and Bolton seemed to reaffirm my view, but since then we have won 2 and drawn 3, in no small part down to Jack Payne. Those of us who support smaller, less fashionable, clubs always want our star players to remain with us but we know they cannot, players want to perform at their highest possible level and Clubs need the revenue from transfer fees to enable them to survive, gate money alone is insufficient. We had a disastrous start to the season losing the first 7 games, November was a bad month as well, only 1 point from 6 games - I felt we were doomed, yet from the other 25 games we have amassed 41 points, almost promotion form. Posh have a fighting chance of staying in the Championship, Gills, in my opinion, are destined for League 1. If Posh fail then I will look forward to the new season with optimism as we have a young squad with skillful, exciting players such as Jack Payne with the ability to get us promoted back to the Championship. I will also look forward to welcoming the Gills to London Road along with ex-Poshies Charlie Lee and Chris Whelpdale, two players who are proven winners and know what it takes to get promotion, they did it with Posh and are doing it again with Gillingham.
Nice write up, it is nice to see you doing well and I hope you stay up and it is good to see him doing so well as I thought he would step up one day. I knew the day would come that he left and it is a shame that he has gone but he wasn't going to stay at Gillingham for the rest of his career. Hopefully he will keep you up and prove how good he actually is as he is a quality player and I feel that at Gillingham he may have faded a bit at times as he needed a new challenge. I think he did seem like he wanted to move on in the summer and that feel through and that don't make me like him less as I really respect him as he played loads of games for us and done very well at the club in the 4/5 years he played for us so well done to him and hopefully he will continue to improve as I said years ago he would make the top.
oldposhpete - thanks for the write up. I will give you my view by using your very own words... If Posh fail then I will look forward to the new season with optimism as we have a young squad with skillful, exciting players such as Jack Payne with the ability to get us promoted back to the Championship. Just been looking through some sports articles and your not the only club in the Championship that believes you should hold faith in your youth and keep hold of them, following in his father's footsteps... http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/21615556
Good to see Payne doing well as i always thought he was good enough for the champainship. Lets hope Gills get a decent fee of over 500k plus add ons. If Posh do not come up with enough money let some other teams bid for him as he has shown to be good enough at this level.
Scrap that he may want to return to a club on the up in league one hopefully! If not then I think all Gills fans wish him well the best
