TWO ANGRY CAMELS IN A TINY CAR ............. Take the shortest trip of the season - to the home of Leyton Orient.Hardly having enough time to get comfortable on the coach before arriving in East London- providing that we don't get diverted again. We are approaching the sharp end of the season - 5 games left and struggling to cross the safety line. Our last outing 4 days ago - to Peterborough showed how far short the Gills are from competing with the clubs at the top of L1. Now we face another club looking to achieve automatic promotion. It would seem that we were on a hiding to nothing ! For much of the season Orient have been top - but lately WOlves & Brentford have pushed them into the 'dreaded' play-off positions ( We wouldn't mind a stab at that! ) Orient are an East London club in the shadow of West Ham. Orient were formed in 1881 by members of the Glyn cricket club and are currently the oldest London club in the Football League. Their name was chosen by a former player Jack Dearing - who was employed by the Orient Shipping Company. In World War 1 Orient had 41 players join the 17th Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment..... and many lost their lives. In recognition of this, Orient became the first club to be watched by Royalty - by Prince Edward ( later King Edward V111. ) So it would seem that the good folk and players of Orient are up for a battle. Would the Gills be able to engage in the war for those elusive points that would ensure that we have a chance to host Millwall when they get relegated next week. The task for the Gills, at Orient, would not be easy - but not impossible. Back in 1969/70 Orient were champions of the 'old' Division 3 ( L1 ) and hosted The Gills just after being 'crowned' Gills needed to win to have any chance of avoiding relegation ( sound familiar ? ) - Well we managed what was considered impossible - and took home all the points. Could we dare for lightning to strike twice ? Orient, financially, have 'suffered' in similar ways to many other lower league clubs - experiencing real problems in the mid 90s. The current owner of the club, Barry Hearn bought the club for £5. Paul Scally (Gillingham chairman) would not consider this to be good business - having, allegedly paid only £1 for the Gills. The more unkind of you would say that we aren't worth any more than that at present. There followed some complicated financial 'dealings' which produced money to redevelop the ground - chiefly by selling land at the four corners of the ground - for flats to be built - for a free view of matches. Would I dare to say that the rent for these flats is set by the fortunes of the team. I have some sympathy for Orient ( nothing to do with their play ) - having been 'bullied' by West Ham as the EPL side were awarded the tenure of the Olympic Stadium - thus bringing Premiership football even nearer for the residents of Leyton. I wonder if the decision would have been any different if Orient were still in the top tier of English football - this was for one brief season in 1962-63 ? Although the journey, in distance was short, it took nearly as long to park as it did to get to the ground. This wasn't helped by the inactivity of 5 police oficers - who took an eternity to realise that the traffic needed to be stopped to allow the coach(es) to enter the road in which they ( the police ) had directed. When common sense prevailed and we came to a stop we quickly found a pub that seemed to be taken over by a large group of Gills fans. The pub was called The Coach & horses. It seemed that we had found the stable block. No money had been spent on the decor - probably for the last 50 years. The carpet was a disgrace - I cannot recall seeing one so dirty before. The seats were extremely lumpy - basically where their innards had collapsed. Most pubs on a Saturday would have live football on their screens - this place was showing a film. Not sure what it was - looked like something similar to the Planet of the Apes - and dubbed in what brb & I guessed was Greek ! So - on to matters relating to actual play. Orient definitely would want to take strides back towards the top table - starting with 3 points from the match. I would expect that the Gills would be set up to try to sneak a point from a goal less draw (not with our leaky defence) There were to be two positives from todays game. Firstly the impeccable way that both sets of fans observed the minute's silence in memory of the fans who died in the Hillsborough tragedy - well done. The second was - because the game kicked off 7 minutes later than normal we were spared the Gills going behind for longer than might have been - but - The Gills certainly made up for lost time in that department ! The defence - particularly Harriman were a shambles and it wasn't particularly a surprise that we were 0-4 down by half time. I pity Stuart Nelson in the Gills goal - he wasn't to blame for the rubbish in front of him. At half time I seriously contemplated leaving and going to the pub - but the thought of THAT carpet would have made me more sick than what I had been watching for 45 minutes. I was surprised that the Gills manager, Peter Taylor didn't make any substitutions for the start of the second half. Surely he had heard the displeasure of a large section of the sizable Gills following. Even before half time there were shouts of " Taylor Out " and much booing as the players left the pitch for the hairdryer treatment. But - No - Taylor threw the same 11 back on. I can only assume that Orient were either bored with scoring goals or were saving themselves for the play-off games - but no further goals came until near the end of the game. It seemed that Orient decided to go for one more - which duly arrived - but still a lot of Gills fans remained - and not all were baying for the head of Taylor. Gills managed to spoil Orient's clean sheet with a rare goal from ***an - which heralded ironic chants from the Gills faithful as they sang " Easy, Easy ,Easy " I was sat a couple along from fan_of_mulligan who was busy scribbling in shorthand into his notebook. I turned to brb and said that I didn't need to take notes as I could remember everything about the performance by The Gills and didn't think that I needed shorthand skills to abbreviate the word Sh1t ( sorry about the spelling mistake ). Next week's game at home to Tranmere, on Good Friday, is simply a MUST win game - it needs to be a Good Friday otherwise I think that Peter Taylor will not be spared crucifixion by the fans.
I never boo or jeer our team at a game and like you alwaysright following them home and away but as you know and I must admit after that fourth goal today, I just completely lost it.
