Brislington 1 v 0 Gillingham Town – 05/05/14
This was the last game of the season and the result made no difference to the final league position of either team. As such it was always going to be difficult for the players to raise their game and this, together with the exctremely hard and bobbly pitch, meant that this was a dour affair that will not live long in the memory.
Even bearing in mind the fact that the Gills have been fielding a developmental team in their recent games they were very short of players. As such there were rare starts for Jack Baker, Josh Mead, Dan Sansom and Ryan Schouten. Nick Thomson started as a striker and there was also a place on the bench for Ben Thomson who made himself available despite carrying an injury.
The first chance didn’t come till the quarter hour mark and this fell to Brislington when Will Agbo lost the ball on the edge of his own area. Neikell Plummer pounced on the error and Jamie Beale could only palm his shot into the path of Alex Lambert, but he blasted the ball over the bar when about 10 yards from goal.
5 minutes later the Gills ended a good passage of play with Nick Thomson volleying the ball across the area and a Brislington defender nearly headed the ball into his own net as he tried to clear it.
Just before the half hour mark Brislington had a big shout for a penalty turned down when Josh Mead seemed to trip a player in the box but the Referee waved away their appeals.
That was it at half time with neither team really looking capable of making the breakthrough.
The second half continued in the same vein but after 5 minutes it the Gillingham players who were appealing for a penalty when Ashley Clarke was bundled over in the area but, once again, the Referee wasn’t interested. Then just before the hour mark Nick Thomson drew a smart save out of Brislington keeper Nick Yeo with a volley from just outside the area.
Just past the hour mark Ben Thomson came on for Josh Mead with Ben going up front and his brother Nick returning to his usual position in defence. Ben made an immediate impact and would have scored with one of his first touches if not for a fantastic one handed save by Yeo.
Brislington scored the only goal of the game completely out of the blue and against the run of play with just over 15 minutes remaining when a deflection left Jack Smyth through on goal. His shot struck Jamie Beale but then rolled agonisingly across the line just before any defenders could make it.
The Gills rallied and a few chances were created but none could be converted so the game finished with a 1-0 defeat.
Man of the Match was Dan Sansom.
Gills line-up: Beale, SAnsom, J Baker, Hewlett, Mead (B Thomson 63), Agbo, Cox, Clarke, N Thomson, Ben Salem, Schouten (Rodriguez 76).
Terry Lucas
