That last 10 minutes | Vital Football

That last 10 minutes

daveycrocket

daveycrocket

Vital Squad Member
A few of us couldn't quite understand why we played as we did; like knocking the ball around in your back garden with a 6 year old. As the RE were chanting " attack, attack, attack". we were urging the Gills to do so but they didn't, so frustrating. Quite a lot in the RE were getting really quite mad and start booing, which isn't what we wanted after such a great win.

I can't see why both teams didn't bother, neither Gills or Orient could have affected any promotion or relegation issues. Crazy.
 
Lozzy-Hove_Gill said:
Although I agree with you, I think Harris's slant on the subject made appreciate another side of the issues in terms of player injuries
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I had the hump at the time as it was a boring end to an entertaining game but in hindsight I can understand it. I watched Ritchie Wellens post match interview and he alludes to him and Harris agreeing to just see the game out, " they've got 3 points and we probably wouldn't have clawed two goals back, we're promoted but want to win the league, me and Neil had a chat " or words to that effect.
 
daveycrocket said:
A few of us couldn't quite understand why we played as we did; like knocking the ball around in your back garden with a 6 year old. As the RE were chanting " attack, attack, attack". we were urging the Gills to do so but they didn't, so frustrating. Quite a lot in the RE were getting really quite mad and start booing, which isn't what we wanted after such a great win.

I can't see why both teams didn't bother, neither Gills or Orient could have affected any promotion or relegation issues. Crazy.
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Potential for injuries.
After a match players have a long stretch and warm down.
The lengthy break in play could have potentially caused muscle injuries had they resumed at the same pace.
It was an edifying sight for the fans watching but given that the game was dead, acceptable for the participants.
 
Like LHG, I was a bit gutted at the time that it was petering out as it did. Then reality kicked in. If on Jan 13 we’d been offered the chance with three games left to be 2-0 up against the runaway leaders with ten minutes left, safety assured, I might just have accepted the offer! More relevant though was what NH said. It was a cold evening, players been standing around for 25 minutes, imagine if we’d gone for it and someone got injured. Or we kicked Orient into life and they scored and we start thinking why did we just not keep the ball. And let’s not forget, we were winning, it was up to the opponents to get the ball back if they wanted to, not for us to do anything daft. So my slight annoyance at the time has been replaced with common sense. Eleven home games, nine wins, one draw, one defeat. Unbelievable form at any time by any team in any division, let alone given the previous eleven home games of two wins, four draws, five defeats. From the ridiculous to the sublime!
 
I fully understood the “stand off”. It would only have changed if Orient felt they wanted to try to get something from the game. There was no reason for us to do anything silly at all.

There was a similar incident in an AFL game over here recently. Power outage meant the players were off for nearly an hour. On resumption the complexion of the game completely changed. And both coaches were very unhappy that the game started again after such a break, with the real prospect of bad injuries and muscle strains. Both coaches voted to end the game as it stood if they had the choice.

There is a reason professional athletes spend a fair amount of time warming up and warming down.
 
Agree with all the above even though i was really annoyed at the time. Survival by beating the champions elect should have been an epic celebration at the final whistle. It lost the edge for me.

As unlikely as an orient comeback was I wonder what the teams below us feel about both teams giving up for the last 13 minutes.
 
Had the lights not have failed, would you have expected Gills at 2-0 up against the league leaders to go chasing more goals? No, we’d have tried to get hold of the ball, run the clock down and see the game out.

That’s all we did after the restart, it was just incredibly weird because Orient made absolutely zero attempt to stop us doing it.

As both managers have said, the risk of muscle injuries in that situation would be massively increased and the two teams sensibly decided it wasn’t worth taking that risk when the chances of an Orient comeback were almost zero.

It didn’t bother me at the time and it doesn’t bother me now - the most important thing for me was just making sure the game actually finished so we didn’t lose the hard work we’d put in for 80 minutes to get the lead!
 
Colburn said:
Whilst it was frustrating at the time you just need to read NH comments to understand why
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Where are NH's comments ?
(Not on the GFC website)

On KoL NH is reported as saying::
“I won’t step back. I have told them I am going to pick teams to win games and they all want to be in that team.

“We have earned the right to go and enjoy three games of football. We will be picking a team and preparing to win at Bradford.

“We now want to go and upset the apple cart. We upset Orient to a certain degree by beating them, they couldn’t win the league, but they got promoted. We want to do the same at Bradford.

“We want to finish the season strongly, we have three games left and we still have a say in who goes up and who goes into the play-offs. It is important that we finish on a high. I will pick teams accordingly.”

Others in the GR were saying:
"we pay your wages".

Both teams had 5 minutes (or more) of warming up.
They were ready to restart.
Then it took another 3 minutes before NH raced to get the Officials.

Only Jeffries seemed to make an effort, and when he did, others sprang in to life.

Sorry, but to many of us there it soured an otherwise great result - and floodlight tale !
 
Tarian said:
Where are NH's comments ?
(Not on the GFC website)

On KoL NH is reported as saying::
“I won’t step back. I have told them I am going to pick teams to win games and they all want to be in that team.

“We have earned the right to go and enjoy three games of football. We will be picking a team and preparing to win at Bradford.

“We now want to go and upset the apple cart. We upset Orient to a certain degree by beating them, they couldn’t win the league, but they got promoted. We want to do the same at Bradford.

“We want to finish the season strongly, we have three games left and we still have a say in who goes up and who goes into the play-offs. It is important that we finish on a high. I will pick teams accordingly.”

Others in the GR were saying:
"we pay your wages".

Both teams had 5 minutes (or more) of warming up.
They were ready to restart.
Then it took another 3 minutes before NH raced to get the Officials.

Only Jeffries seemed to make an effort, and when he did, others sprang in to life.

Sorry, but to many of us there it soured an otherwise great result - and floodlight tale !
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He also said on KOL that no one wants to go back out there and pull a hamstring or calf or do their back. Perhaps you missed that bit
 
Tarian said:
Where are NH's comments ?
(Not on the GFC website)

On KoL NH is reported as saying::
“I won’t step back. I have told them I am going to pick teams to win games and they all want to be in that team.

“We have earned the right to go and enjoy three games of football. We will be picking a team and preparing to win at Bradford.

“We now want to go and upset the apple cart. We upset Orient to a certain degree by beating them, they couldn’t win the league, but they got promoted. We want to do the same at Bradford.

“We want to finish the season strongly, we have three games left and we still have a say in who goes up and who goes into the play-offs. It is important that we finish on a high. I will pick teams accordingly.”

Others in the GR were saying:
"we pay your wages".

Both teams had 5 minutes (or more) of warming up.
They were ready to restart.
Then it took another 3 minutes before NH raced to get the Officials.

Only Jeffries seemed to make an effort, and when he did, others sprang in to life.

Sorry, but to many of us there it soured an otherwise great result - and floodlight tale !
Click to expand...

https://www.kentonline.co.uk/medway/sport/reaction-gillingham-v-leyton-orient-285555/

Wasn't hard to find
 
On the plus side, I had 3 separate football friends reach out to me since the game to ask a) what went on? and b) how the Gills have been doing.

All publicity, n' all that jazz...
 
There's a lot of general discussion about it on the Orient fans forums mostly concerning how other teams might feel about what went on.

They don't actually care that it happened but reckon that others should be blaming us for playing keep-ball rather than attempting to go forwards. From a different point of view I'd argue that Orient could have made some attempt to win the ball but chose not to.
 
gills69 said:
There's a lot of general discussion about it on the Orient fans forums mostly concerning how other teams might feel about what went on.

They don't actually care that it happened but reckon that others should be blaming us for playing keep-ball rather than attempting to go forwards. From a different point of view I'd argue that Orient could have made some attempt to win the ball but chose not to.
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We were winning so the onus was on them to win the ball off us, which clearly and understandably they weren't bothered about
 
Tarian said:
Where are NH's comments ?
(Not on the GFC website)

On KoL NH is reported as saying::
“I won’t step back. I have told them I am going to pick teams to win games and they all want to be in that team.

“We have earned the right to go and enjoy three games of football. We will be picking a team and preparing to win at Bradford.

“We now want to go and upset the apple cart. We upset Orient to a certain degree by beating them, they couldn’t win the league, but they got promoted. We want to do the same at Bradford.

“We want to finish the season strongly, we have three games left and we still have a say in who goes up and who goes into the play-offs. It is important that we finish on a high. I will pick teams accordingly.”

Others in the GR were saying:
"we pay your wages".

Both teams had 5 minutes (or more) of warming up.
They were ready to restart.
Then it took another 3 minutes before NH raced to get the Officials.

Only Jeffries seemed to make an effort, and when he did, others sprang in to life.

Sorry, but to many of us there it soured an otherwise great result - and floodlight tale !
Click to expand...
He made it quite clear in his post match interview that there were no instructions to the players other than to go out and play the game. At 2:0 up and safe, why would we chase more goals and risk injuries ? Indeed I’ve seen plenty of games when, as a form of game management, the ball goes to the goalkeeper and he hangs on to it for minutes which, as long as he doesn’t handle it, he’s quite entitled to do.
 
GillsFan22 said:
Had the lights not have failed, would you have expected Gills at 2-0 up against the league leaders to go chasing more goals? No, we’d have tried to get hold of the ball, run the clock down and see the game out.

That’s all we did after the restart, it was just incredibly weird because Orient made absolutely zero attempt to stop us doing it.
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Had the lights stayed on we would certainly have played at a higher tempo than we did. Not saying we'd go hell for leather as we wouldnt want to be too open and risk giving the O's a way back in but it would have been different.

The players would have be more relaxed by the two goal cushion and maybe "expressed themselves" as managers like to say.

It was a farcical end but reasons understood
 
Therealwaldo said:
He made it quite clear in his post match interview that there were no instructions to the players other than to go out and play the game. At 2:0 up and safe, why would we chase more goals and risk injuries ?
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I'm sure there must be statistics somewhere which show how many teams with a 2 goal advantage scored another goal in the last 10 minutes.
 
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