Hope and despair

Our Gills columnist Ben Hopkins looks back at the past season at Priestfield

With the football season reaching its end, we asked our Gills columnist Ben Hopkins to look back at the highs, lows, and middles of a rollercoaster season at Priestfield…

Chapter 1: Bonner’s bounce

Early in the season, I posted a picture of my friend celebrating the 2-0 win over Barrow with the caption, “Best Gills day ever. Repeat until May.” In hindsight, my foresight was myopic, but the facts were more than encouraging: 6 wins, 1 draw and 1 defeat from the opening 8 games.

And that feeling was grounded in something approaching logic too. The team had ended the previous season with a long unbeaten run at home and just needed goals to translate draws into wins. Add a manager, Mark Bonner, with a promotion to his credit, as well as two signings, Elliott Nevitt and Jack Nolan, who had 33 league goals between them in the previous season, and everything looked rosy.

What happened next, however, was the opposite of a phoenix from the flames. It was more like a beerbutt chicken falling onto the charcoaled embers below and instantly being burnt to a crisp while remaining completely raw. The season’s first 19 points had taken just 8 games to accumulate. The next 19 took another 25.

Gillingham FC