Bad Gills, talking 'bout the sad Gills

Gillingham away is an absolute slog to get to. It very much wasn’t one of the fixtures I looked out for when they were released. If you made the journey to Priestfield last Saturday, you very much earned and deserved the performance you were treated to.

You don’t change a winning team, but I don’t think there’ll have been too many complaints about Woods coming in for Payne. We’ve been wanting the team to be more attacking and start games on the front foot, and while it would have been asking a lot for us to score as quickly as we did vs Bristol Rovers, our start at Gillingham was most acceptable.

Kavanagh was understandably desperate to get off the mark for us, so, when Caprice played a great long ball to him 10 minutes in, you could forgive him for having a shot from a tight angle instead of squaring it to Fondop, who was in space in the middle of the box. Mikey was raging, mind. Not to worry, he soon made up for it. From the resulting corner, Fondop cut the ball back to Pett, he gave it to Caprice, whose great low cross put it on a plate for Kavanagh to put us 1-0 up and get his first goal. Seek and ye shall find.

It was soon 2-0, with another goal from a corner, which was pleasing. Their keeper punched the ball to Stevens, whose shot was blocked but fell to Monthé, who put it away with what looked like a cheeky backheel while being given a lovely little cuddle by Beckles, who he then threw to the ground when he ran away to celebrate. Marvellous.

🇨🇲 God bless Cameroon. Migration is beautiful.

We were well on top, with Stevens in particular having a great game, but we switched off a bit and Hudson had more to do than was ideal. Thankfully he’s dead good and did brilliantly, making a brilliant save low to his left when a free kick from miles out wasn’t cleared and Little’s shot took a deflection, and another great save with his legs from Dack after they hit us on the break.

Gillingham were crying for a penalty for handball an hour in, but the referee was having none of it. We continued to have the better of it, and Drummond teed up Kavanagh after a nice bit of play down the left, but his shot was well saved. Despite us having the better of the game, they were dangerous on the break, and it took a man of the match performance from Hudson and solid defending to keep a clean sheet.

There was only ever going to be one winner, though, and the third goal was the best of the lot. Hammond headed a long ball onto Monthé's fellow Indomitable Lion, Fondop, who showed remarkable control and composure to head the ball down and chip the keeper. Come on, it’s a bit easier to do it at Priestfield than it is at Wembley. All’s well that ends well, and God works in mysterious ways. A resounding win, a pretty complete performance, and the Gillingham fans were audibly furious. All round, a rather excellent away trip. I hope those of you who went had a lovely day.

I don't know what this celebration is but I like it.

Mellon was delighted for the supporters – “they’ve come such, such a long way” – and was pleased with the result, and how we started, but felt that we switched off a bit at 2-0, and let them back into the game a bit. He praised Hudson for making some important saves, but wished he hadn’t had to: “I don’t want them to see what a good goalkeeper Matty is, I want Matty to be idle.” He was as happy as I’ve seen him all season, though, and said he wants us to perform like that all the time. Us too, Micky.

For his part, Hudson was keen to give the defence their share of the praise – “I’ve got a really good back four in front of me, haven’t I?”. Kavanagh was relieved to get his first goal, especially after getting a bollocking for not passing to Fondop: “I’m a striker at the end of the day, I’m trying to get me goals”. And Mikey, of course, talked about how God’s always got his back.

As Pete Mason put it so well, both us and Gillingham are looking at spending the remainder of the season pottering around in Mid Table Emptiness, but you still want to win as many games as you can and try to play attacking football, and we certainly did a better job of that than they did last Saturday. It’s unlikely that we’ll make the play-offs (and we’re certainly not going down), but let’s try to go into next season with a bit of momentum behind us rather than throwing the towel in before February’s done, eh?

Our women’s team ground out another point on a tough playing surface vs Winton Wanderers, drawing 2-2. We took the lead twice, with Ruby Crossman scoring early on and Mehek Khalil coming on as a sub to score in the second half, but were frustrated and couldn’t get a winner. They’ve got a big game tomorrow as they face AFC Chorlton in the Premier Cup semi-final at Armitage Sports Centre on the Manchester Uni campus (M14 6HE). Best of luck, girls.

We’re missing the football this weekend as we’ll sadly be attending the funeral of Andy’s uncle, Michael McKeefry. He was a great man, he had an excellent innings, and he lived long enough to see his grandson lift the Andy Merrigan Cup at Croke Park, having led his club, Watty Graham’s, to glory in the All-Ireland club final. RIP, Michael.

Having had a minor blip, we’ve got a great opportunity to make it three wins on the bounce today. Crawley are 21st in the league and haven’t won since January (and that was against Harrogate, who are terrible). Let’s make our mid-table superiority count. KTMFF.

Written by Arlene Finnigan. Photos © Oldham Athletic.