31st Anniversary | Page 2 | Vital Football

31st Anniversary

I followed results from Longfield for several years before actually watching a game, no one I knew supported Gillingham. My first game was 1st April (I kid you not) 1967 v Watford, who were pretty good then. Of course we played brilliantly, trounced them 4-1, I found the shed run by Mark Agate and co, everyone was very friendly and that was about it. The very next home game we were dismal and lost 2-0 to Reading but through my rose tinted specs that was just a blip, a travesty, a mistake. I haven't learned but I have learned to live with it. I still know all the people I met back then apart from the fallers.
Was that not the match the my hero AleC Farrell scored a goal ) or maybe 2 to get us back in the game?
 
Machin messed about with it in the corner. They scored. Scored another. Derek Woodley on for the last few minutes. Things started happening. Yeo scored. Over. I’ve probably got it wrong.
Don't forget Peter Feely who was, in my estimation, more potent as a striker than Brian Yeo (another of my favourites).
 
A chilly Saturday late in 1969 when, as a 12 year old went with a school chum to watch Gills v Plymouth. He was born in Plymouth but wanted to see the Gills who won 4-0. We were both hooked despite it taking most of our £1 allowance just to get in!
 
I am always surprised how many people have vivid memories of their first match. I guess not everyone has been to as many games and started as young as me. I have no idea when my dad and grandad took me to the Gills for the first time, but it would have been early 80s when I was about 6 or 7 - the same age I took my son for the first time a few years ago. I'll have to try to remember to remind him in later years that it was Ipswich at home in a friendly then a FA Cup game v Carlisle that were his first games.

One of the first games I can recall going to is one of the Everton Cup games, which I do remember and there was a match that I now know was a Cup game against Cardiff. The only memory I had from this was that it was snowing, so a bit of a novelty, and the Rainham End were lobbing snowballs at the Cardiff keeper. I didn't recall it being Cardiff until seeing a Youtube clip a couple of years back of the match, including the snowballs!
 
I remember that. Watched it from corner of Rainham End/Main Stand. Used to climb up and sit on the bars that criss crossed the floodlight pylon at a height of about 5 feet for a good view.

It felt very exotic watching a "foreign" team.

The attendance for that friendly was 3,045! My grandad had called at our house on the way to the game and by all accounts I was being a shit that day ( well, i was a kid) It was a case of mum saying to grandad “If you’re going to Priestfield bloody take him with you”
 
Probably wasn’t the first but first one I remember was Late seventies, beating Hereford 4 0 or 4 1, and I was about 7. I though of them as gods on that day. I still hold the faith
 
2nd April 1966. Beat Bristol Rovers 2-0 at home. Gibbs and Brown the scorers. I was 11 years old and spent most of my pocket money to do it. I remember the thrill of looking in the paper at the results the next day and confirming that I really had been there!
 
Jepson may well have been a bully but not many would have crossed him. He used to come up regularly when people discussed the hardest men in football. The football was dreadful and you absolutely knew that as soon as the opposition scored first our interest in the game was over. Ternent not only failed to keep us up and refused to introduce Hess in the deciding game he also landed us with that dud Jepson. A half way decent manager at that time and things might have been very different. Oldham fans adored him, Rocket Ronnie.
 
Makes me wonder if the average armchair sitting premier league team fan has similar memories to us ?

Yep. Don't forget in the olden days the Premier League was called the 1st Division (almost the same title as our own dear league!).
Very few kids at my school (60s and 70s) had parents who took them or let them go regularly to top flight matches in London or elsewhere. 'Match of the Day' or 'The Big Match' was where our Arsenal, Man Utd and Liverpool 'supporters' got their fixes. Of course some never actually saw the big name teams they professed to support at all.
 
I think thaat might have been the previous season. Alec had already left.
Ah, ok - I could have looked it up in my Home of the Shouting men however I was confident there are enough fellow supporters on here who can repeat the book verbatim. Actually, I am wondering whether I might be mixing him up with Mel Machin, who was another favourite of mine. Just looked through the years in my HOTSM but couldn't find anything that fitted my memory, also discovered I need some reading glasses....bollox!
 
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My eldest son doesn't have happy memories of his first match. Coventry at home in 2002 when he was 5, we sat behind the goal in the Rainham end and he got hit by the ball. He had to go to the first aid room and was so miserable for the rest of the match we left early for the one and only time in my life. He's stuck with the Gills though even though my wife is from Leicester and all her family are Leicester fans
 
Ah, ok - I could have looked it up in my Home of the Shouting men however I was confident there are enough fellow supporters on here who can repeat the book verbatim. Actually, I am wondering whether I might be mixing him up with Mel Machin, who was another favourite of mine. Just looked through the years in my HOTS but couldn't find anything that fitted my memory, also discovered I need some reading glasses....bollox!

Passed my HOTSM to the next generation and my memory is erratic though sometimes good on long ago. My first reference is now this:

http://gillinghamfcscrapbook.co.uk/

It tells me that on April 1st 1967 we beat Watford 4-1 in front of 5969 spectators with Riddick, Brown, Gibbs and Crickmore scoring for us. There is even a scan of the press report complete with other results and a league table. Apropos of nothing Alec Farrell is Roger Triggs all time favourite Gills player, quite a recommendation.
 
Passed my HOTSM to the next generation and my memory is erratic though sometimes good on long ago. My first reference is now this:

http://gillinghamfcscrapbook.co.uk/

It tells me that on April 1st 1967 we beat Watford 4-1 in front of 5969 spectators with Riddick, Brown, Gibbs and Crickmore scoring for us. There is even a scan of the press report complete with other results and a league table. Apropos of nothing Alec Farrell is Roger Triggs all time favourite Gills player, quite a recommendation.
That makes two of us then......I just thought he had stayed longer than he did.... mind you, when your heading towards your 9th birthday, days seemed to last for weeks and weeks, forever. Ill keep pondering on it JJ (even if it means reading everything from the 60s which is no bad thing, have some lovely memories from back then) and if/when I discover something, I'll get back to you.
 
One thing I do *think* I remember, though, although looking back now I don't know whether it really happened, or whether I've made it up, because it seems pretty strange. Back in the 80s, did they deliver programmes for that day's match to your house? The way I remember it, my Dad had arranged it as a surprise, and I had no idea I was going to be going until a programme was delivered to our house.

Does anyone else remember this then, or did I just imagine it?