No I haven't gone madder - we had a right old mystery tour on route to Bradford to see the Gills edge closer to L1 safety. As we assembled at Priestfield stadium - it should have given our drivers (two) a clue as to the passengers who were to board the coach - and where it was supposed to be going. Unfortunately our regular driver Roger Best was on leave and instead we got tweedle dee and tweedle dumb in his place - assisted by Mrs.Satnav - who should have known better than to expect that any male driver would listen to her as she tried to give directions. The rest of the people on the coach could hear the drivers arguing with Mrs.Satnav - but she was (nearly) to have the last laugh. At this point ( and in a week where some of you think you might have scored some points against my good self - and in the interest of my honesty and continued humility ) I will allow you to continue to accrue credit at my expense - by admitting that I completely messed up this thread by deleting the prepared text from my documents - so I have had to make up this as I write................so you will be spared all sorts of trivia about Bradford that I would have included - things like; Bradford have a Fanzine which is entitled ' A tribute to Leeds Utd.' It contains nothing but blank pages. And that in retaliation, the Leeds fans burnt down a chip van outside the temporary stadium of Bradford following the tragic fire at their ground in 1985.......anyway back to the real story Things were going quite well on the journey. We stopped at Watford Gap for a short break. I was close to being mown down by a driver who stopped his car immediately outside the entrance doors to the services - to allow his lazy passenger to disembark - because she couldn't wait for the driver to park properly - which he subsequently did - less than 15 yards away ! We then continued up the M1 - in which there were the usual road works. As we approached the junction with the M6 there were clear signs and road markings telling drivers in lane 1 that this lane was ONLY for the M6. We were in lane 1, but I expected the drivers to have read the signs and listened to Mrs.Satnav as she yelled at the driver to "Keep right, I said keep right you stupid man." You won't win any prizes for guessing where next we went - the M6. Things wouldn't have been so bad if Peter Lloyd hadn't been at the back of the coach collecting the fares - he would have known we had gone the wrong way and now heading for Blackpool. I didn't really fancy a day at the seaside so I phoned Peter ( and there's me calling the aforementioned female passenger lazy ! ) and asked him if Bradford had floated up the M6 during the recent floods. He doesn't normally panic - but I've never seen him run along the coach before............... still the 17 mile detour through the Leicestershire countryside was pretty. I think that this might have caused our driver some confusion. After we rejoined the M1 - and when we were 18 miles from Bradford we could hear the drivers talking about their destination - one said to the other that it was a co-incidence that they had travelled from Gillingham to Bradford because he thought that there was a match between Bradford and Gillingham !!! what did he think we were - togged up in fancy dress for a day on Blackpool beach ? When we eventually got to the ground we had our coach boarded by a steward who told us what we couldn't do inside the ground - this also included getting off the coach - until we turned around to be 'nearside' to the stadium ( we couldn't be trusted to cross the road on our own ) The manoeuvre wasn't at all assisted by Mr.Jobsworth or his 'men' - who just stood watching as the driver tried to do a 1000 point turn - and all the time Mrs, Satnav was giving him grief and demanding a U turn where possible. We finally disembarked and climbed up the north face of the Eiger to get onto the road to the pub where we met up with the northern elite. After a few drinks we wanted to watch a game of football - but had to settle for Bradford v Gillingham. One of our number (Drakey_X) obviously was filled with dutch courage (and lager) because she placed a wager with BSG that Cody would score today. BSG was adamant that this wouldn't happen - and so £10 was staked and hands on the deal were shaken. The first half was totally dominated by Bradford. They were much sharper and moved the ball well. They deserved more than their 1-0 half time lead - but in truth Gills gave them too much time and space and a lot of comfort. The effort was not enough. Weston, following his season opener on Tuesday, obviously fancies his chances on goal - and had a decent effort as our only chance of the first half. At the start of round 2 Hessenthaler & Piggott made way for Lee & Akinfenwa. The former fought well to disrupt the Bradford forwards, whilst Bayo linked up with Cody and, as usual, made a nuisance of himself for defenders. The second half was so much better and Gills were not flattered to score the equaliser - a flick on by Bayo to Cody who coolly slid the ball to the side of the keeper - and thus shutting up the Bradford drummer..... and immediate payment of the wager was transacted. Six to seven minutes before the match was due to end many, many home fans were already streaming out of the ground - I suppose that with 14 other league games of Bradford having already ended as a draw - they knew there were to be no more goals - not that many (any ?) Gills fans were complaining. We returned to our coach - ready for an uneventful journey home - but there would be one more twist to the dispute between driver and Mrs.Satnav. Mr.Driver told the woman to shut up and punched her in the off button and drove from instinct. He - like all smug men who think they know the way - was strutting his stuff and cockily entered the Medway towns with Mrs.Satnav consigned to the glove box. But I'm pretty sure I could hear her laughing as the poor lost soul at the wheel took us through what seemed like every street in Gillingham before finding the ground - where I couldn't get off the bus quickly enough. It is customary to give the driver a tip on our journies - my tip would be to get another job.
A very good point today on the back of two previous wins. However, having travelled to Bradford, I say as I see and that is Taylor messed up again. Why would you change a winning side. My first thoughts were, where is Lee and Bayo and why is Piggott on the pitch? Half-time he makes those changes but then takes Hessy off! Thanks for keeping us up PT but politely goodbye. You've actually done a good job but its blighted with to much negativity. We shouldn't have been looking over our shoulders to avoid relegation but pushing for sixth place, but today like some other previous games see to many points wasted, with too much tinkering. As for the coach drivers is was like round the world in 80 days with Michael Palin. It was like watching the adventures of Phileas Fogg and Jean Passepartout, who didn't realise they had a coach load of Gillingham supporters, seriously you couldn't make it up sometimes.
brb I (genuinely) thought it was a nice touch that Bradford had two five-a-side games at half time for disabled members of their community. There were some good moves - for people with physical disabilities - at least one cracking goal, and I greatly admired their ability to control and run with the ball.
It was and i think the video sums up our day better than may be realised in that wasn't they supposed to go to Newcastle but ended up in Newcastle under Lyme, I just couldn't find that actual clip of the movie.
Good day out, shame about the detour, however most importantly a great point. I'd also like to know why whenever i do get the coach, we stop at the worst service stations known to man, Wooley Edge was more like Zombie edge, I still haven't found out when the Chenobyl like crisis occured there but i'm pretty sure it did at some point. Piggot was utterly useless, ***an was expectadly poor again, Weston non-existent. Bayo has to be given a new deal, he gets the best out of our main goal threat which is reason to have him in the team alone. Win on Saturday and I think we will be safe, Crewe's unpredictability concerns me however.
