The Zimmer Boys on Tour
Yeovil v Gillingham – Wessex woe day
Published by Simon Head on June 30, 2008
Living on the South Coast, trips to Gills matches home or away usually mean for me a weekly trek northward, so it made a pleasant change this sunny but cold December Saturday to point the car westwards. Sweeping through the New Forest, stopping only to ensure that the ponies had had their oats, it was then all systems go for a circular tour around Thomas Hardy’s Wessex.
First up was Casterbridge, and lunch with the Mayor, Mr Michael Henchard. On the quiet a bit of a pikey is Mikey, for he told me that many years ago he sold his wife at the fair. Incredible. A sailor bought her apparently, and with the money he got Mikey donated to the Sign A Striker Fund. Bit of a double whammy really. All his life it’s meant that he’s been wondering both what happened to her, and what happened to the Fund. Spooky. But he keeps a good wine cellar does The Mayor Of Casterbridge, and after several vintage brandies it was then across the county boundary to Yeo-Ville.
Named after our greatest-ever goal-scorer (who was actually born in Worthing) maybe our modern-day goal machines would be inspired to come up with some Brian Yeo-type goal magic playing in the town that bears his name. And we’d got a new keeper. Kelvin Kan’t-Kick-A-Ball was replaced by Dean Brill. A headline writer’s dream! Thoughts of “Just Brill For Jepson” “Gills Are Brill” “Brill Thrills For The Gills” and many many more would really get things bouncing!
Trouble is, no-one probably told Deano that he was playing behind a defence that does a more than passable impression of Britney Spears’s pelvic area (full of holes and gets regularly exposed in public) and after fifteen minutes a through ball straight past our three musketeers in the middle saw Yeo-Ville’s Best go through unchallenged and score via the post. Our embarrassed back-line were all waving for offside (which it wasn’t) or maybe they were waving imaginary white flags. All us fans certainly felt like folding up and shipping out.
And for the rest of the half nothing much happened. Yeo-ville were pretty confident they’d got the game won, and we weren’t at the races. They were quicker than us, more incisive, first to every ball. We finally woke up about five minutes before half-time. Gary The Goal Machine unleashed and their keeper turned it around the post and there was a bit more urgency about. Maybe they thought that Jepson would make them go on the Supporters Coach to explain themselves (or preferably push them under it!)
If we did have a good spell, it was the fifteen minutes after half time. Even though Ben Chorley had to clear one off the line we got a few moves going, and we actually saw a bit of magic from Matthew Jarvis. He wriggled clear on the left and laid on a pass to Gary The Goal Machine, which he banged against the post from close in. Otherwise, our star man looked pretty jaded today (cynics would say he’s probably already been sold and he doesn’t want to blow the deal by getting injured). But straight after that Yeo-ville swept down the field, forced a corner, we didn’t clear it, it went out to their bloke unmarked on the right, and he lashed it into the roof of the net. Mr Brill would have needed to be extremely brill to get anywhere near that one.
Yeo-ville had one of those screaming announcers, and I thought he screamed something which would have been an apt comment on more hapless defending – but it was actually “Chris Cohen”. Or he might have been anticipating three simultaneous substitutions by Big Ronnie (Oops – I originally typed that as Big RENNIE. Probably correct on reflection. This lot give me heartburn I can tell you. But I digress). We had Pouton on for Bentley, Spiller on for Chorley, and Ndumbu-Nsungu on for Crofts. Only Crofts wouldn’t go off, so Flynn went off instead!
Very strange. I don’t understand why if you’re 2-0 down and chasing the game you take off your two highest goalscorers, who we know can score goals away from home. Whatever the reason it didn’t work. Guylain got nowhere, Pouton hit a wayward one when well-placed, and Spiller worked himself into a decent position and passed it to no-one rather than taking a shot which had opened up for him. I thought he cut a sad figure today. Our best chance came in injury time, when Easton hammered a low one in from the edge of the box, it smashed against the inside of the left-hand post, cannoned along the line and just missed the right hand post. That was unlucky, but it was far too late to matter either way.
So if there were any super-optimists out there today, they could point to that chance, the first goal being offside, Yeo-ville being strong at home, us rarely winning there even in our Southern League glory days blah blah blah to convince everyone that we were unlucky. My take is that it was just another routine away defeat – one more of so many we’ve had in the last three years. You couldn’t say that any particular player cost us by having a ‘mare, the refereeing was adequate, Yeo-Ville weren’t spectacular, they were generally just better than us, quicker to the ball, and wanted it more. I’ve been a regular at away games since the early 1960′s, and I’d say our two worst spells were under Basil Hayward (1966-1971) and the dreadful seven years 1988-1995. You went to away matches purely out of habit, with no real hope of getting anything other than a routine two-goal defeat. We’re back to those depressing times now IMHO, and it will need something drastic to stop the rot.
But the night was still young, and for the discerning independent traveller, a few miles up the road another footie feast awaited – Gillingham Town v Sturminster Newton, a fierce local derby in the Dorset Premier League. That’s “Gillingham” with a hard “G” as in “Gillingham”, not “Gillingham” with a soft “G” as in “Gillingham”. This was more like it. Footie at the coalface. Three quid to get in, 50p for a programme, and as much effin’ and blindin’ as you like (and that’s just from the spectators!)
Round these parts, the Gills are known as the Tangerines (they play in orange you see), and with red-shirted Sturminster Newton known as the cherries, it was a fruity encounter. After 15 minutes a soaring header by one of the enemy put the Gills 1-0 down (Oh Christ here we go again) but they battled away to try to pull it back. Plenty of juicy tackles were flying in – two bookings for each side – and no doubt Graham Poll would have had most of them off, but the respect for the referee was quite striking. There was no arguing, and they all did what they were told. With five minutes to go, the Gills had a free-kick on the right touch-line, and a strong header down to the near post squeezed in. 1-1. The very least they deserved, and the Gills had saved the day from being a complete wipe-out.
All through the game the Saturday Night barbeque sizzled and the scrumpy flowed in the clubhouse as the visiting Gills cheered on the Gills as they had battled away. Exhilarating stuff after what had gone on at Yeo-Ville. The Gills fans made the Gills fans really welcome, and old and new chants were sung in celebration. Everyone knew “You’re crap and you know you are” but I must confess “You’re going home in a combine harvester” and “You’re just a bunch of corn dollies” were new ones on me. I’m sure the Gills Youth Firm would have known them though.
But two footie matches and assorted local hospitality were beginning to take their toll, so after a few more beers, burgers, bovril and a good blow-off, it was home via Salisbury and Southampton in time to catch the fag-end of the Hansen/Lawrenson whinge-fest.
Up The Gills (Both of ‘em)
Not good. Things did not auger well for the four Christmas/New Year holiday games, particularly as the New Year’s Day game was a good old rip-roaring local derby at The Den. Games with Millwall always stirred The Zimmer Boys’ passion, but this year one or two of them became incensed at the emergence of a shadowy group calling themselves the “Gills Youth Firm” or “Gate 13 Youth”. Who were these new kids on the block? Did they even exist? Someone on the Gills Official Website Message Board calling himself “Gills Till I Die” said they didn’t – and moreover that the Gills had never had a “Firm” at all. This prompted one of the Zimmer Boys to launch a spectacular rant in reply. Here was raw passion – and not just because someone had emptied a bottle of whiskey into his oxygen cylinder at the Christmas party.
Simon Head
The Zimmer Boys on Tour
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