Managerial musical chairs return to Gillingham
Plus: Chocolate making in Rochester, Medway River Lit ripples out, Luton Lights returns, we review the Ship and Trades, news in brief, our weekly events guide, and more
It’s been a season of highs and lows so far for Gillingham Football Club, with a promising start quickly disintegrating, leading to the sacking of manager Mark Bonner this week. Our Gills columnist Ben Hopkins weighs in on what happens next. Further down, we explore chocolate making in Rochester, new events from Medway River Lit, the return of Luton Lights, review the Ship and Trades, and our usual news in brief roundup and our weekly events guide.
There’s lots of big news breaking almost by the hour about the state of devolution for Kent and Medway, with Kent County Council formally requesting powers in a joint bid with Medway yesterday. It’s a fast-moving story, so we’re taking our time to look at it from all angles. We will have a full rundown in our Tuesday news briefing.
Managerial musical chairs return to Gillingham
by Ben Hopkins
Managerial musical chairs returned to Gillingham this week, with Mark Bonner departing after ongoing torrid form. In his place - until the end of the season - is the veteran John Coleman, best known for two long spells at Accrington Stanley, which re-established them as a league team.
Bonner’s time at Gillingham initially seemed like the perfect match, with six league wins from the first eight games. But when that first run of form ran out of steam, it didn’t just unravel, it completely detonated with the following fifteen games bringing just three wins and ten defeats. Extrapolated over a season, those results would nearly guarantee relegation in a year in which promotion was the main ambition.
What went wrong? Well, you name it. Injuries, both niggly and longer-term, have been omnipresent, with potential key players Bradley Dack, Aaron Rowe, and Josh Andrews barely featuring. The defence has presented a litany of errors, primarily due to slack marking and a complete lack of concentration. The midfield hasn’t gelled at all, leading to little creativity for the strikers. And the strikers - Elliott Nevitt, Josh Andrews, Marcus Wyllie, Jake Wakeling and Olly Hawkins - have scored just twice from a combined total of thirty league starts. As results disintegrated, Bonner seemed to flail for an answer, somewhat haphazardly mixing up team selections in a futile search for a working formula.
Now in his sixties and having spent his entire career up north, it seems unlikely that Coleman’s Gills mission will go beyond May. But that’s fine, as he has enough challenges to be getting on with. Many fans hope his disciplinary streak will address what many consider to be a squad rife with players with indifferent attitudes. The play-offs are surely beyond us, but we need results to improve: not only to avert a current low-risk of relegation but also to improve dismal fan morale.
I suspect Coleman will have some limited opportunity to bring his own players in, primarily either on loan or with short-term contracts. More likely, it will be a period of blooding promising youngsters to prepare them for bigger contributions next season and seeing who can be moved on. The consistently inconsistent George Lapslie has already left for Bradford. Who could follow him at some point between now and the summer is near endless: Hawkins, Remeao Hutton and Jonny Williams are prime contenders to move sooner rather than later; Wakeling’s loan will surely be terminated in the coming weeks; Rowe won’t return next season; and Max Ehmer is the biggest of many names whose contracts are up in the summer. And that’s before we address other issues. Retirement for Glenn Morris and Dack? Loans away next season for Wyllie and Joe Gbode? The rumoured sale of Shadrach Ogie to Birmingham?
Whatever happens, the Gillingham that returns in August will be a world away from the one we see now. And praise whatever higher power you believe in for that.
In brief
⚽ Between sacking managers, Gillingham Football Club has submitted plans to build a 900-capacity fan zone at Priestfield Stadium. The area will contain food and drink stalls, a stage, and new toilets.
🇯🇵 KMTV has made a short film about the story of Will Adams. Adams was the explorer from Gillingham who went from being a dockyard worker to a samurai in Japan.
🍻 A group of men who walked to every Wetherspoon in Kent has declared that The Railway in Rainham is the best one. In a happy coincidence, it also happens to be their local.
🏋️ Roko Health Club in Gillingham has been sold to Everlast Gyms. The chain, owned by Mike Ashley’s Frasers group, purchased the gym, which was put on sale last year for £3m.
🍔 The Burger King in Dockside Outlet Centre in Chatham has closed after 22 years. It comes as McDonald’s is set to move into the centre.
🦚 “I went and did my business and chatted to him.” A peacock took up home in the toilets at Capstone Park.
Curious about cocoa in Rochester
Curious Cocoa is an artisanal chocolate company set up by Beth Frost from her home in Rochester in 2018. She had been working from home as a textile artist when “I started to develop carpal tunnel in my hand” and needed something else to do within the creative area. “I had always wanted to work with food.” Beth’s mum had grown up in a sweet shop owned by Beth’s nan, who taught Beth about confectionary when she was young.
Beth found a three-day chocolate-making course in Surrey, where she learned basic skills of tempering or making ganache from Mark Tilling, and Curious Cocoa has grown from there. This was always the plan from when she signed on for the course, and Beth says “it’s gone quite well.” She works out of a specially built kitchen in her own home, but it’s not a commercial kitchen. “This used to be a driveway,” she says of the open plan stylish kitchen we are standing in, “my husband’s a builder.”
Beth works with couverture chocolate, which has about five ingredients in it. Most corner shop chocolate is a compound with about 20 ingredients in it. She uses Callebaut, made with cocoa butter, but also works with a dark chocolate variant when making pieces for vegans. “It's about creating crystals in the cooling down process so that the chocolate becomes shiny, has a nice snap and doesn't look dull and grey.” Beth makes all her chocolate individually by hand, and they are colourful. “That was intentional. I wanted to incorporate my art background. There is that hand-painted element.” The boxes are certainly fun to look at.
“I just thought I'll make chocolate and see where it goes,” she recalls. She started selling the chocolate via the Artisan market in Rochester, with November and December unsurprisingly being a busy time of year. A single large box will take half a day to produce, from making the initial chocolate, moulding them and hand-painting. “I do everything by hand. I have no machinery at all. I temper all by hand.” Whilst she has considered taking it to the next level, at the moment she is comfortable with the success she has generated.
The biggest cost she has is the chocolate, which has recently doubled in price. “It’s crippling the industry, and there are multiple issues: Climate change, Brexit, an accumulation of factors has led to less supply.” It’s why so many chocolates are suffering from ‘shrinkflation’, with supermarket customers getting less chocolate in their bar and smaller chocolates with no reduction in price.
Unable to change the economies of scale that would get her chocolate at a cheaper price, Beth modified her offer and started delivering workshops and children’s parties. “Now I'm doing workshops, that's where my main income is coming from.” She is able to offer this at a lower price than Kent-based competition that work out of commercial kitchens. People come in small groups, have fun and make a variety of chocolates, including lollies and truffles. “People always comment they're surprised at the amount of stuff they take home with them” as part of the two-hour sessions.
As well as the children’s parties, she now delivers full birthday parties, with buffets and homemade cakes. She has also taken her chocolate-making workshop on the road, delivering a session with the local cub scouts, and is hoping to start working with local schools. “As long as they have a kitchen in the school, I can do this,” Beth says, highlighting how optimistic she is about the future.
If you are interested in buying Beth’s locally made chocolate or taking part in chocolate-making workshops, you can find out more on the Curious Cocoa website.
Out to Lunch: Ship and Trades
In which Steven Keevil assesses the lunch options available in our towns. This week, he’s been down to The Ship and Trades in Chatham...
The Ship and Trades pub is at Chatham Dockside, part of a larger complex that comes with a hotel stay, should you need it. The pub has parking and lovely views of the marina and St Marys Island. Inside, the pub is open and clean, there is a good atmosphere, and you can choose between seating in the pub or restaurant areas. In this instance, we selected the bar area.
We selected various options from the small plates and sides menus to share. This included hash brown potato puffs with salt beef and topped with crispy cavolo nero, sticky chipotle & lemon corn ribs, slow cooked honey glazed pork belly with a spiced apple chutney fennel and celeriac remoulade, crispy buttermilk chicken wings with sesame Asian slaw in a sticky BBQ wing sauce, Whitstable Bay beer battered onion rings, garden salad in a lemon and mustard dressing, a bowl of house chips, bacon mac & cheese topped with a herb parmesan crumb. Before any judgment, I must stress again that these were small plates to share.
The food was, on average, delightful. There were lows: The onion within the beer batter rings was soft and oily. There were highs: The beer batter itself was crispy and tasty. The hash brown potatoes were nice, but the salt beef was minimal amongst a sea of crispy cavolo nero. The honey-glazed pork belly was delicious and succulent, but it was not enough for two people to share. Buttermilk is on trend, and the chicken wings were very nice, even if the BBQ sauce wasn’t quite BBQ or sticky enough. Chips are always welcome, especially when they are this good. Bacon with mac & cheese is always a winner. The surprise stand out was the corn ribs (corn on the cob divided into quarters). They were easy to eat and packed with flavour. I will definitely get those again as a side, no matter the meal.
With far more highs than lows, the Ship and Trade is a classy place to go for a pub lunch by the water.
Medway River Lit ripples out
Rippling Out is the new extension of Medway River Lit, starting this weekend. The intent is to feature events that could not be part of the main autumn festival schedule for various reasons of time, space, and money. Barry and Sam Fentiman-Hall, who run Medway River Lit, have received funding from Medway Council’s UK Shared Prosperity Fund to support these events.
They have a great mixture of events, from participatory to purely entertaining. Their first event is a workshop on using images to inspire poetry, dubbed 'phoetry'. That's being hosted by Michi Masumi, founder of Medway Black Arts Hub. This event is this Saturday at Nucleus Arts in Chatham and tickets are limited. They also have award-winning comedian Rose Wilby’s ‘The Breakup Monologues’ on the unexpected joy of break-ups (to be clear, this isn’t a subtweet to my partner) at Sun Pier House on 25 January. There is also poetry and ceramics with Carol Smith and lots more beyond. All Rippling Out events are free to attend.
Get involved with Luton Lights
Ideas Test is partnering with Luton Primary, Luton Library and Invicta Social Club to deliver Luton Lights 2025. On 18 January, they are delivering two workshops where everyone who creates a piece of art on the day will be entered into a prize draw to win a high-street voucher.
This year’s Luton Lights festival theme is ‘Tales from the Deep’, so expect to create mermaids in motion, sailors lost at sea, shipwrecks, and even deep-sea creatures. Ideas Test has invited two amazing artists, Xtina Lamb and Hannah Whittaker, to lead the workshops. These family-friendly sessions are designed whether you stay for an hour or the whole day. With Xtina, you will create unique UV artwork, and with Hannah, you’ll get your hands a bit dirtier creating stained-glass windows.
All artworks created during the workshops will be displayed as part of a light installation in residents' and businesses’ windows along Luton Road and Luton High Street between 3 - 23 February. You don’t need to be from Luton to take part, everyone is welcome. The workshops are free and you can find more details here.
Events this week
🏺 Until 22 Jan - 144 pots for 144 women // Exhibition by Nicola Vincent-Abnett, which honours and celebrates the twelve dozen women killed in the UK in the first year of the Femicide Census. Halpern Gallery, Chatham. Free.
🎻 Sat 11 Jan - City of Rochester Symphony Orchestra // A night of Viennese music featuring Mozart, Puccini, and Strauss. Rochester Cathedral. Tickets from £15.
👺 Sun 12 Jan - Join the Dark Side… of Morris Dancing! // Wolfshead & Vixen Morris, one of the first gothic Morris sides, is seeking new members to join their group. Borstal Village Hall, Rochester. Free.
🎮 Mon 13 Jan - Medway Fighter video game making workshop // Interactive workshop crowdsourcing ideas for a fighting video game based on Medway. No technical skill is necessary. Rochester Library. Free.
🍻 Wed 15 Jan - Medway’s Lost Breweries // Talk on the history of Medway’s lost breweries, accompanied by a slideshow and display of artefacts and models. Wigmore Library, Rainham. Tickets £4.50.
📽️ Wed 15 Jan - Se7en // 30th (!) anniversary screening of David Fincher’s bleak crime masterpiece. Odeon, Chatham. Tickets £5.
🎸 Fri 17 Jan - The Gentle Spring + Oldfield Youth Club + These Guilty Men // Indiepop bonanza from Careful Now Promotions. Oast Community Centre, Rainham. Tickets £8.
To inform us about an interesting event happening in Medway, email events AT localauthority DOT news. We can’t guarantee we can include everything, but we’ll do what we can.
Remember that our Medwayish shop contains a wide range of Medway-related gifts and products designed by local creatives. We have books, mugs, t-shirts, prints, and other fun bits and pieces. Check it out!
Footnotes
Follow us on social media! We’re on Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, and Threads, but not that other one.
If you enjoy Local Authority, please share it with your friends, family, associates, and enemies. We have no meaningful marketing budget, so we rely on word of mouth from our readers to find new readers. You can even get some sweet rewards for sending new readers our way. Details here.