View From Gillingham

[William Henry Foulkes]

A decent result for us against the perennial bookies favourites but I'm not going to get carried away and think we're world beaters, similarly you shouldn't be too down as opening day often throws up a freak scoreline, one big improvement on last season was your lads not going down like they had been shot every time there was a stiff breeze, you may all think it was just poor from you but yesterday we would have made most teams look pretty poor and this without our expected top goalscorer and one of our better defenders,

I tend to watch our team and not really see the opposition but I was really impressed by the Number 50 (apart from his number - which is stupid of course ). Won everything in the air and really shut us out.

 

[gillsfan]

Not a freak result but a freak scoreline, we have beaten bigger teams than sheff u at priestfield and lost to some absolutely abysmal smaller and non league as well, but I expect us to be able to beat anyone on our own turf.
You should certainly expect to be a mid table 2nd tier club as a minimum but right now you're not and because of that perception of yourselves some of your fans seem to think that this division should just roll over and have their plums tickled but how boring would that be, I don't know if you are as derogatory to other clubs at this level as I only pop over around our games but it seems some of you think we are the smallest club ever to grace the football league but mid table in the 3rd tier with a few tilts at promotion and a couple of relegations is what we do but it is not the limit of our ambition or potential and you will lose to smaller clubs than us this season however I believe you will be in contention going into the final few games

 

[raul]

It's one of the sticks I get beaten with at the office, apparently us Blades turn quicker than a spinning top.

Good stuff, now for some footballers that can do the same.

 

[FATTYFOULKE]

Not a freak result but a freak scoreline, we have beaten bigger teams than sheff u at priestfield and lost to some absolutely abysmal smaller and non league as well, but I expect us to be able to beat anyone on our own turf.
You should certainly expect to be a mid table 2nd tier club as a minimum but right now you're not and because of that perception of yourselves some of your fans seem to think that this division should just roll over and have their plums tickled but how boring would that be, I don't know if you are as derogatory to other clubs at this level as I only pop over around our games but it seems some of you think we are the smallest club ever to grace the football league but mid table in the 3rd tier with a few tilts at promotion and a couple of relegations is what we do but it is not the limit of our ambition or potential and you will lose to smaller clubs than us this season however I believe you will be in contention going into the final few games

Lol 'mid table 2nd tier club at least"

It wasn't that long ago our lowest ever finishing position was 12th in the league above. In fact memory fails me, it might have been 7th.

...and you wonder why we're peed off.

 

[Pittsburg Blade]

Not a freak result but a freak scoreline, we have beaten bigger teams than sheff u at priestfield and lost to some absolutely abysmal smaller and non league as well, but I expect us to be able to beat anyone on our own turf.
You should certainly expect to be a mid table 2nd tier club as a minimum but right now you're not and because of that perception of yourselves some of your fans seem to think that this division should just roll over and have their plums tickled but how boring would that be, I don't know if you are as derogatory to other clubs at this level as I only pop over around our games but it seems some of you think we are the smallest club ever to grace the football league but mid table in the 3rd tier with a few tilts at promotion and a couple of relegations is what we do but it is not the limit of our ambition or potential and you will lose to smaller clubs than us this season however I believe you will be in contention going into the final few games

Nice summary Mr. Gill. Your team reminds me of how our old pal Dave Bassett used to set up his squads. Plenty of moderately skillful, big enthusiastic lads. Lots long throws and launches into the box hoping to get a break as it pings around. It worked yesterday against a very poorly organized defense with a nervous and easily bullied goalkeeper. Most of us Blades are shocked at the team that Adkins sent out to play that sort of frantic hoof game. It was his first outing for us so we'll have to forgive him. You'll have to forgive our supporters in turn. We are naturally upset at having the backing of 30k fans supported by Saudi money and we still can't seem to do the business in the league.

 

[Thaddeus]

It wasn't that long ago our lowest ever finishing position was 12th in the league above.

How can that be when we were in the fourth division in the eighties?

 

[FATTYFOULKE]

How can that be when we were in the fourth division in the eighties?

Well I suppose it depends how old you are. It's in my lifetime and I'm 53 so just before our drop through to the third and then the fourth. I was there when we got relegated to the third for the first time at Cambridge.

Might be a long time ago to you, but yesterday to me.

 

[gillsfan]

I make it 36 seasons in the second to 23 in the top since football resumed after ww2 so seems as an outsider sheff u to be more of a second tier club but you'd know more of Your history than me.

That long throw was a surprise to us and should get us a couple of goals this season.
That's it from me I'm off to bug our next opponent's, best of luck for the rest of the season except april 9th

 

[mattbianco1]

I'm not sure how they can be called a pub team... There's no bloody pubs !!??!?

 

[Mustela Putorius Furo]

I make it 36 seasons in the second to 23 in the top since football resumed after ww2 so seems as an outsider sheff u to be more of a second tier club but you'd know more of Your history than me.

You're right - outsiders will naturally see us as second tier these days. We, on the other hand are brought up knowing that we've spent the majority of our years in the top league, (60 seasons to 55 outside), have won the league once and the cup four times - which is more than most clubs have achieved - and we'll tend to forget that the successful period was a hundred years ago... because when many of us started watching football is was only 50 or 60 years previous - enough to feel like it was just a generation past.


We don't by any means think we have a right to be anywhere other than where we are... but with the fanbase, and the related finance - we *should* be able to get out of this division with a little more haste than we are managing now. We haven't and it's becoming increasingly frustrating that while other traditionally high ranking clubs can recover from similar "blips" quickly, we just can't seem to do it.

When many of us set out on the painful journey of watching United, there used to be little difference between us and Man City in terms of trophies and positions.... how that's changed, eh? But now we've become more like Portsmouth - again similar past successes tainted by tragic failure... but we'd even begin to think Portsmouth will outstrip us in the fight to restore former "glories" now.