The Zimmer Boys on Tour
Cheltenham Town v Gillingham – Horsey Fun
Published by Simon Head on July 14, 2008
Giddy-Up The Gills! What a strange away-day! Cheltenham of course, in rural Gloucestershire, has nothing to do with football. It’s the home of horse racing, so what were we doing going into deepest Horsey Land in the middle of the football season? Me and the rest of the Gills Zimmer Firm were pondering this in the back of the charabanc as we sped along the A40, on the way to meet up with the Gills Gate 13 Youth Firm. We then realised that as there were so many horsey connections between Gillingham and Cheltenham we ought to have a town-twinning.
F’rinstance, our badge has a white HORSE. Tommy Trewblu is our lovely loveable HORSE. Some of us gyppos still go to HORSE fairs. When I was giving Gills fan and Page 3 stunner Keeley Hazell a good seeing-to the other night, she told me I was hung like a HORSE. With the transfer window still open we’re hoping Ronnie is going to do some HORSE-trading, but of course our Dear Leader Mr Scally is taking himself off on yet another business trip to some five-star resort in the HORSE Latitudes.
On the Cheltenham side, their most famous local resident, Prince Charles, plays his Polo on a HORSE. Just up the road from them at Gatcombe Park lives HRH The Princess Anne, who goes jumping on a HORSE. Her daughter, Ms Zara Phillips MBE won the BBC Sports Personality of the Year cos she rides a HORSE. (Tell you what though, me and the Firm would all give her a good jump-off, what with those blonde rosy cheeks and tight jodhpurs and such-like. But I digress)
Anyway, with all these horsey connections, when we got to Whaddon Road and had a look at the programme, we weren’t surprised to see in it a HORSE Quiz. First Question – What have Desert Orchid, Red Rum, Shergar and Gills promotion hopes got in common? Answer – They’re all stone dead. Next Question – What word describes Gillingham’s defensive clearances and something you’ll find underneath a HORSE? The answer to that one is “hoofs”.
OK. Hands up everyone who said “A Pile Of Poo”. Well not quite this time, because we had a new player in it, a young lad called Sean Clohessy. At least it seemed like a new player, we’ve seen so little of him recently. And of course we had our £1.5 million wonder-kid Matthew Jarvis playing, and by crikey did he look the bizz in the first few minutes. He really turned on the HORSE-power, and raced through the Cheltenham defence on a diagonal run outpacing the lot of them, and squared the ball across the face of the goal. Bas Savage is at the far post, he’s a yard out, he’s unmarked, he must score….and he’s missed!
Oh *****!!! But wait! Isn’t that a double eclipse of the sun? Isn’t that Halley’s Comet streaking across the sky? Isn’t that Lord Lucan saddling up ready to gallop round the pitch on Shergar? Something awesome is about to happen. And two minutes later it did. Matty slaughtered them for pace again down the left, crossed it low and, from a yard out, Bas smashed it home. YESSSS!!!!
Cue moonwalks on the pitch and a mood something between incontinence and orgasm off it. Then something else became apparent. Bas was really up for this, and he was going to score another. The Jarvis and Savage combination that had put us 1-0 up after six minutes was but an HORS d’euvre for a goal-gallop. Fill yer jodhpurs! But of course there’s always the Gillingham defence to contend with, and after 17 minutes Ian Cox got booked for a clumsy challenge. The wall that lined up for the freekick had a hole in it bigger than Jade Goody’s mouth, and Cheltenham’s Melligan belted a knee-high shot straight through it to make it 1-1.
And then it rained. What is it about Cheltenham? Every time we play here it buckets down at half past three. This time round we were in the dry, and could watch as Dean Brill pulled off a tremendous save, Andrew Crofts hit a rasper at their keeper, and Ian Cox gave a fouling master-class. And of course after getting a severe rollocking from the referee just before half time for one clatter, he does it again in the last minute of the first half. Coxy tried to tell the ref that it was just HORSE-play, but the ref was having none of it and sent him off. Big Ron Manager looked slightly miffed. Everyone else was effin’ furious. And that’s straight from the HORSE’S mouth!
It was quite obvious that Leon “Is that forward goalside of me again?” Johnson was coming on for the second half, but who would be axed? It had to be between Bas and Gary The Goal Machine. Surely not Bas? Bas was up for it, Bas was on fire, Bas was more likely to score again today than Russell Brand on a day trip to Cheltenham Ladies College. But of course Big Ron Manager would never pull off his pet player, so it was Bas who had to warm the bench for the second half. Boooo!
Defending (I use the word cautiously) in front of us for the second half, before the restart we saw Mike Flynn whipping up the team and the fans to go as one to squeeze something out of this game. And it seemed to work. Despite a bit of panic at the start when one of their blokes miskicked in front of a gaping net, they didn’t put us under too much pressure. Most of the time when they got into the box, they misplaced passes, or ran it out of play. If they did get it right Dean Brill, who I thought had an impressive second half, made a magnificent save. He pulled off three beauties, the best clawing away a header that was going right into the top left-hand corner. At the other end we didn’t threaten much, our best efforts being a flurry of corners about ten minutes from time.
And then, halfway through this rearguard second half, a ghostly anthem drifted across the Gillingham ranks:-
Singing Aye Aye Iffy, Iffy Aye!
Singing Aye Aye Iffy, Iffy Aye!
Singing Aye Aye Iffy,
Aye Aye Iffy,
Aye Aye Iffy, Iffy Aye!
What could it mean? Had our legendary War-HORSE been spotted in the Radio Box, or was it a call for him to return as manager? Spooky.
Anyway, things slowly fizzled out on the pitch. Both teams seemed to settle for a point, as with defences on top trying to get a win was flogging a dead HORSE. I suppose we had a HORSE laugh on them as we got a point with ten men. And what did we all do at the end?
Cheered ourselves HOARSE, of course!
The following Friday evening all the Zimmer Boys were on parade at Priestfield for the home game with Tranmere Rovers – not because the Birkenhead mob were riveting opposition but more because the match was being televised by Sky. They were hoping that the sight of a colostomy bag being hurled in anger following some rotten refereeing decision, or the linesman tripping over a stray catheter lead would make the Third Eye slot on Soccer AM. No such luck, but Gills turned over their ultimate bogie side with an impressive 2-0 win, the first time ever that they’d done the double over Tranmere. Another false dawn? Possibly. A shambolic 3-1 defeat at Huddersfield followed, but that was balanced by a 1-0 home win over Bradford City. So on Friday February 16th it was back on the road again to see how their favourites would fare against a side that had only won four home games all season.
Simon Head
The Zimmer Boys on Tour
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