Failure at gills.Who do you remember most about . | Vital Football

Failure at gills.Who do you remember most about .

chris who

chris who

Vital Champions League
The more obscure the better.
For me it would have to be Ashley Miller a blindingly talented player who often outshone Bradley Dack as a youth player.With the ball at his feet this lad could really play .I was hooked and went up to youth games regularly to watch him .Convinced he was destined for much much bigger things than Gills .Played for the first team under Hessenthaler I believe and scored. But last seen at Folkestone invicta or below. Having been watched by Premier league giants scouts not that long before. What happened we are unlikely to ever know.
Your player can be good or alarmingly bad but basically a player who never made it in the game at league level that you will never forget.Funny stories most welcome.

Just realized it should have a question mark in the title sorry.
 
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Never saw Miller playing for the youths so can't comment if he was worthy of the hype. Considering how much he would cost compared with Liverpool's and the other premier league side's budgets, I am surprised no one took a gamble on him if he was genuinely that talented.

Miller himself has blamed the sacking of Hessenthaler and being replaced by Martin Allen who was into a bigger, faster, stronger, fitter philosophy. As a smaller and nimble player, he never fit into Allen's way of playing.

Since he left he had played well doing the non-league scene but doesn't look as if he'll get back into the main professional leagues and now in his mid 20s doesn't look like it.

I think we all when we were 14-15 years old playing Sunday league junior football knew a player who was good enough to play for the under 16s but upon reaching the age of 18 was still good enough to play for the under 16s.
 
Ashley Miller shows how you need a bit of good luck. Tucker was due to go to Hastings last summer but a change in manager and he is in the first team. He probably will move on this summer but it won't be too Hastings.

Peter Beadle is an interesting one. Big move to Spurs, never played and then went around the lower leagues. He had a decent career, so wrong to call him a failure with 357 games and 83 goals but never played at the top level. Better to say someone who didn't realise his dream following the move to Spurs
 
I always felt Mick Galloway could have achieved more with us. He, on his day, was an excellent player, but those days seemed to lessen the longer he stayed with us.
 
Gills 58 said:
Iirc Mark Cooper trying to take the place of Cascarino. Poor sod didn't stand a chance..

For managers, Paul Taylor after Sir Keith. They got rid of the machine and put the oily rag in charge.
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2 excellent calls G58.

I too pitied Mark Cooper. The fact he was replacing Cas, and also came from Spurs (for a decent fee) meant the expectations were huge. Just checked he scored 11 in 50 games for us, so never cut it.
 
Gills 58 said:
Iirc Mark Cooper trying to take the place of Cascarino. Poor sod didn't stand a chance..

For managers, Paul Taylor after Sir Keith. They got rid of the machine and put the oily rag in charge.
Click to expand...

Is this the same Mark Cooper who went on to manage the Swine?
 
Perhaps I did not make myself clear I was looking for players .That never made a full season in league football never first choice and that most of us had forgotten. Perhaps Ashley Miller was a poor example. I did think of using Nigel Donn who I seem to remember had a well squeaky voice. That made me laugh .
 
What about players who failed to get into the side regularly during the times we were at the foot of what is now league two?I largely missed that era .There must have been the odd gem of a poor player.
 
Some of Stimson’s signings spring to mind. Leroy Griffiths and Stuart Thurgood?!
 
Lark said:
Some of Stimson’s signings spring to mind. Leroy Griffiths and Stuart Thurgood?!
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I honestly felt at the time that Leroy might have been signed to help try to get the best out of Dennis Oli.i remember Griffiths scoring a cracking goal at Priestfield. As for Thurgood he appeared well out of his depth and so disappeared.
 
chris who said:
Bit unfair on Birchall it was injury that stopped him being a successful player. Unlike MacCammon the injury was definitely genuine.
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I never said it was his fault, but with the hype when he arrived, his time with us was a failure.
Rowan Vine was another, I'm sure he was a good player, but lasted 20 minutes before injury saw him gone. Again it wasn't his fault but from a Gillingham point of view, a failure.
 
Has to be said Paul Shields was a step up from Steve Hislop and Bullock but I do agree that they were all pants mind.
 
Tony Bottiglieri, Gerry Summers had high hopes for him . Played a few end of season matches for a couple seasons but drifted out of the game.
 
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