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Brentford have a chance to go back to the top of the league on Friday night. Even if it is only for just under 24 hrs. In the build up to the big match, BillyTheBee speaks to Dan (@Gillsfansonline) from Gills Fans Online about their darts player Danny Kedwell, football fans’ general caravan prejudice and Gills’ chances of an upset on in front of the Sky cameras on Friday

A lot has changed for the both of us since Farid El Alagui’s last minute equaliser at the Priestfield Stadium. Gillingham fans were a bit gutted after the match as they felt they should have taken all 3 points. Did you feel the same?

To be fair in the first game at Priestfield we were tweaking our ability to concede last minute goals. It began on the opening day against Colchester United, we’ve been perfecting it since, and has been the hallmark of the first half of our campaign.

In all seriousness though any club that loses goals in the last minute of a match would be disappointed, and with Brentford a decent third tier club, it would have been a good scalp so early in the season to get a win hence the disappointment only drawing 1-1 in August.

It’s been a season of ups and downs for you guys. Struggling to keep your heads above the relegation line. Is there hope at the end of the line?

Well it took us almost two months at the start of the season to win our first game in any competition, so a few fans were questioning how a team that won the league the season before could struggle so badly.

The first win eventually came away against a dreadful Crewe side at the end of the September and we have been making steady if unspectacular progress since.

However, you can sum up our season so far in just a few words, Jekyll and Hyde. One week we will be very good like the performances and wins that we got from the Wolves and Swindon games, the next absolutely woeful like like we were in the defeats to Colchester and Oldham. As for Colchester away game you could have got us done under the trade and descriptions act such was the lack of football actually being played by us!

That Swindon win was a bit of a result. They’re no mugs Swindon. Well deserved?

I would say the Swindon game was our best performance of the season to date, and it was much needed after the horror show at Colchester the week before. We got up in their faces, pressed them at every opportunity and took our chances when they came.

You must be delighted with Sheffield Utd’s form at the moment

As Man City, Leeds and Norwich found out in this league in recent times, you have to earn and battle your way to promotion as status counts for nothing. Personally I think Sheffield United will get out of the relegation scrap under Nigel Clough. But seeing as we have already won at Bramall Lane they hold no fear for us when we play the return game at Priestfield.

Leon Legge was praised by Peter Taylor for his performance against Swindon. He was a bit of a hero down at Griffin Park popping up with his last minute goals. I see he scored against Swindon.

Given how many different players have moved between both clubs down the years we often have a running joke with Brentford fans that we turn ex-Bees players in to better players when they sign for us like we did with Robert Taylor and Carl Asaba.

As for Leon Legge, much like the team this season, he can be good one week but poor the next. That saying he was a vital cog in our Championship campaign in League 2, as were Nelson and Weston, both also former Bees, and Legge is a popular player with the Priestfield faithful often engaging with them on twitter.

Martin Mad Dog Allen always seems to start well at clubs then it all goes horribly wrong. Rumours of fall outs with the chairmen and management. Control battles. All sorts. There were even rumours that he was allegedly almost fisticuffs with half the Gills dressing room. Was it the same down slippery slide down at Gills or was he a bit unlucky to get sacked so soon after winning Gillingham their first championship in years?

To be fair given our chairman’s ego and his ability to rub most people up the wrong way, it was never likely to end well for Mad Dog at Gillingham.

However, it should never be forgotten what Martin Allen did in taking a team that had underachieved in the fourth tier two seasons in a row, add a few freebies and loans to the mix then lead us to our only our second every league championship and promotion.

As you have highlighted, there was lots of rumours flying around about what was going on at the club at the time, but unfortunately and I can’t tell you if any were true or not because nothing has ever come out.

I agree he was probably a little hard done by to get the sack as it looked like the team had maybe turned a corner just before. But Scally did the Maths and decided our points per game ratio if continued with him would have been too low to stay up.

One bizarre thing Allen did is he put three of our best players on the transfer list outside of the transfer window with no real explanation as to why then took them back off again a few weeks later. Also, in his last game in charge away at Shrewsbury, the game before his was sacked, he picked his son, a midfielder by trade, as a stand in right back and told the media what a great game he had afterwards. That’s all well good but we lost the game and team selections and tactics were questionable.

The meat pie juggling obviously didn’t pay off then

Meat Pie juggling hey, well we never saw that. I feel we have missed out some what.

Peter Taylor was probably one of your most successful managers. Were fans happy to see him back?

As for Peter Taylor I wouldn’t go as far as to say he was one of our most successful ever manager as in his first spell he inherited a very good squad that Tony Pulis had spent there seasons building. Yes, he deserves credit for changing the playing style and getting the team promoted via the playoffs. But he left the following season so hard to compare him to the greats at Gills like Tony Pulis and Keith Peacock.

When he (Taylor) was given the job after Allen was sacked, he wasn’t exactly the popular choice amongst the supporters. However, the chairman needed someone he could trust and as it stands the team have been improving since he was given the job until the end of the season. That saying, at Colchester he came in for a lot of stick from near 1,000 traveling fans given how bad we was, and if we go down under him the chairman will come in for a fair amount of abuse for appointing him I’m sure.

So is Kedwell still a key player? When we interviewed Gills fan DJ Clive Johns earlier in the season he said Kedwell likes a drink and a fag and looks like a pub player.

Danny Kedwell is the beating heart of our team and if everyone had just half of his work rate we would be further up the table. Danny may look like a pub player but he is anything but and he will be a loss at Griffin Park as he is currently out injured.

Stan Collymore recently reported a load of people for a number of rather serious incidents of online racial aggravation and threatening behaviour. Not equating the two at all as racial abuse is bang out of order and illegal but it made me think .. The constant Gillingham caravan jokes that go down. Do these upset you or do you see it as a bit of harmless banter?

That Collymore stuff on twitter is sick and I hope the authorities do something.

As for the pikey banter it’s all water off a duck for us. We have a song that goes like this;

“We can’t read we can’t write we wear golden Nikes
We all come from the Medway towns and we are f@@king pikes
PIKEY ARMY”

Hmmm interesting. But you don’t actually live in a caravan do you …. Or do you???

No but given the cost of house prices and the the cost of living these days I don’t blame people for living in caravans and on the move. I bet it’s a damned sight cheaper

It’s assumed that only travellers (for example Romany or Irish) live in caravans. The truth is absolutely anybody could live in a caravan. There’s no shame in it. One well known Brentford supporter Gibbo lived in a caravan in Gloucestershire for 6 months and he’s black british. In principal, should the clubs not be pulling fans up for being caravanist?

Maybe. Saying that the Gypsy wedding programme seems popular these days so maybe the traveling community are loved after all.

Head to head, Brentford are just steaming ahead winning 36 games to the Gills 32 with 22 games drawn. Tough call for the Gills to turn that one around. Possible??

I seem to recall us taking an absolute pasting at Griffin Park during our last meeting in League 1 when we didn’t win away all season. I can see that happening again if we play as badly as our last away game.

Then again London clubs are a bit of a derby fixture for us and we are just as likely to even surprise ourselves and win the games.

Give us a score prediction

I’ll go with 2-2.

How about a first, second and playoff prediction.

1st – Wolves
2nd – Bees
playoffs – Orient

Thanks to Dan for taking time out to chat to Beesotted. You can follow Dan on twitter – @Gillsfansonline or check out Gills Fans Online website for all the Gillingham gossip.

BillytheBee
@Billythebee99