The Zimmer Boys on Tour
Carlisle United v Gillingham – Daffodils, but no golden Gills
Published by Simon Head on July 28, 2008
I wandered lonely as a cloud, That floats on high o’er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd,
Of Pikeys shouting “Up The Gills”
So guess where we’ve been. That’s right – the ultimate homage for a Gillingham fan, an away trip to Carlisle. But these days getting up with the dawn chorus and facing a seven hundred and fifty mile coach journey in a day doesn’t exactly fill us with enthusiasm, so we took the more leisurely and well-heeled route of a five-day stop-over in the Lake District.
And very nice it was too. Spectacular scenery, friendly people, good English grub. Why bother with the footie? But seeing the Gills at Brunton Park was what it was all about, so on Saturday morning it was down to the station by Lake Windermere ready for the eighty minute trip to Carlisle. We’d originally planned to drive it, but having spent several days in Lakeland negotiating 1 in 3 hills, climbing up Pikes and Fells, sweeping through Dales and passing Waters, we thought we’d let the train take the strain.
We’d found some new Lakeland friends, who were joining us to cheer the Gills on too. There was Peter Rabbit, Jemima Puddle-Duck, Mr Jeremy Fisher and Mrs Tabitha Twitchet, and she’d also brought along the Flopsy Bunnies. We were keen on meeting the Flopsy Bunnies, as we guessed they could be several 38DD Playboy models who might be starting to sag a bit, but who were still up for shagging like rabbits on the train back. Err forget that – it turned out they actually WERE rabbits, and being straight kinds of guys we’re not into that sort of thing. Mind you, the two Swindon fans further down the carriage were casting longing eyes at them all trip. A step-up from their usual disgusting practices with pigs and goats probably.
The train trip took us over Shap Summit. Every train photo you’ve ever seen shows two engines pulling the Euston/Glasgow express over Shap, giving off more steam than Big Ron Manager does when we’ve blasted yet another one over the bar. These days diesel/electrics make short work of it and we were in Carlisle before eleven o’clock. We’ve never really thought about what sort of town Carlisle might be, so we were suitably surprised. The station name “Carlisle Citadel” should have been a clue. This is a place that’s been fought over for centuries. William The Conqueror seized it from the Scots, and we’ve had to kick ‘em up the kilt several times since to keep it, before Henry VIII finally sorted them for good. So there is a pretty impressive castle built with red Cumbrian stone and allegedly haunted by Mary Queen Of Scots, a red-stone cathedral (didn’t know they had one of those) and of course the football ground.
The main entrance to Brunton Park is guarded by a tasteful statue of their famous goal-machine Hugh McIlmoyle. “Hugh scored a record 41 goals in the 1963-64 Fourth Division promotion season” it said. But even with a haul like that they’d only finished runners-up. “So who beat them to the Championship?” asked Mrs Tabitha Twitchet. “Why – Freddie Cox’s Gillingham of course!” we bragged, and then we all went in to find our seats.
The team were already out for a warm-up, and we had two loan signings playing. There was Dale Tonge from Barnsley, who looked so much like Craig Stone that it could have been him, and Felix Bastians, a German from the Forest (Nottingham that is, not the Black one near the Rhine). We’re not sure what Charlie Westwick would have made of having a German Youth International in the team – he never forgave them for sending over that Messerschmitt which took out half of his toolshed during the Battle Of Britain – but Meister Bastians looked quite useful. Midway through the first half he put in some strong runs down the left which had the Carlisle defence in a bit of trouble. He forced three corners, and put in some decent crosses. Unfortunately no-one could get on the end of them.
Someone needed to, because we were already one down. With Carlisle’s first decent attack after a quarter of an hour we gave away a free kick on the edge of the box. Someone in the wall decided to do a more than decent impression of a salmon leaping in the River Eden, which gave Carlisle’s Murphy the opportunity to send a Paul-Smith-at-Plymouth grass-cutter into the net with Monsieur Larrieu nowhere. He almost broke his foot kicking the post though.
But setting aside the goal, and a bit of Gills pressure midway through the half and again as half-time approached it was tepid fare to set before the 300 hardy souls who had trekked north, and our new Lakeland friends. We ventured to ask Jemima Puddle-Duck what she thought of it. “Quapp!” she replied. A duck of few words is Jemima, but we thought she’d captured the mood succinctly. Perhaps Big Ron Manager had had more to say during the break, because there was a bit more urgency about things in the second half. Mark Bentley put himself about a bit, clattering the keeper going for a Spiller knockdown, Gary The Goal Machine bounced a header onto the bar and over, Trigger had a shot completely fumbled by their keeper and it bounced against the post, and one of their blokes nearly put through his own goal. We were quietly confident we’d get an equaliser.
Mind you, Roman Emperor Hadrian would have never kept the Scots from swarming through Carlisle if he’d built his wall like the Gillingham defence. Reliable it ain’t. There’d already been one hair-raising moment after 55 minutes when a back-pass was horribly short and Larrieu had to dash from his area and execute a waist-high header with two Carlisle forwards steaming in, but after Mark Bentley got sent off with fifteen minutes left the roof fell in. Bentley’s challenge near the touchline didn’t look very serious, but a whinging victim backed up by a ranting crowd in that area did the bizz. Second yellow, early bath, and as Mark disappeared down the tunnel the whole of the team went with him – or so it seemed. We were treated to one of the most inept ten minutes we’ve ever seen from Gillingham in over half a century.
There have been times when the boot was on the other foot, and Gills have leathered in four in the last ten minutes. The famous 5-3 Cup win against Brentford during the Peacock years after being 1-3 down, and belting Workington 5-1 from 1-1 after 80 minutes in Freddie Cox’s time, but on those occasions we played out of this world stuff against really useful opposition. With this game, Carlisle just needed to string some passes together, swing it about a bit, push players forward, and rattle in as many as they liked. The points-clinching goal for 2-0 was a long cross from the left, Danny Jackman’s lack of height was ruthlessly exposed as Joyce climbed all over him and gave Larrieu no-chance with a firm header at the far post.
Game over – but on it went. Two minutes later an almost identical move saw Jackman horribly exposed again and another close range header made it 3-0. With Carlisle sweeping the ball around and Gillingham standing like statues, you just knew that a run by the lively Smith down the left was likely to end in catastrophe. Sure enough with Sancho tracking one run, you thought “There’s a clatter coming here.” There was. A Sancho body-check as soon as Smith got in the box – Penalty! 4-0. Gills colours were being lowered – literally. The array of flags behind that goal was being taken down as each goal went in, as fed-up fans jacked it in and went home. Just one flag was left flapping over a crush-barrier as yet another raking cross, this time from the right, took the solitary defender and Monsieur Larrieu out of the game, and left Carlisle’s Graham the simple task of nudging a header over the line.
That fifth one was in injury time. Goodness knows what the score would have been if there had been another ten minutes. At least 8-0 we’d say. Our Lakeland friends were quite bemused by it all. People ranting, storming out, swearing – extraordinary. Peter Rabbit rummaged in the poacher’s pocket of his blue waistcoat, and produced a big bunch of carrots that he handed to us. “Cheer up” said he. “I stole these from Mr McGregor’s garden this morning. Take them back to the hotel, and have them make you some carrot wine. It will drown your sorrows.” The carrots looked superb, and felt nicely rounded with a firm pointed end. “These are much too good to make wine with Peter” we replied. “In fact, after a ten minute performance like that we’re going to go round to the player’s dressing room with these carrots, and we know EXACTLY where we are going to put them.” And that’s exactly what we did.
After all that, the sizeable contingent of Gills fans had a long trip home in which to stew on this latest debacle, and some were seriously doubting whether the team had the skill or the fight to stay up. But in truth, it was a long way to go before the panic flags needed to be hoisted. There was still a six-point gap between Gillingham and the dreaded drop positions, and the teams in the bottom four were showing a distinct lack of oomph themselves. The next two fixtures were against two of them. An extremely flaky 2-1 home win against Brentford eased the pressure somewhat, but then on Easter Saturday the much-maligned Gillingham defence were at it again, chucking away a 2-1 half-time lead to lose 3-2 at Rotherham.
At the end of that one the long-suffering away travellers snapped, and they booed the team off. It was a demonstration of contempt that was probably long overdue, and possibly it had the desired affect. Faced with an Easter Monday home game against Bristol City – who had five straight away wins under their belt – our team of no-hopers should have been hammered out of sight, but they battled and scrapped and won more comfortably than the 1-0 scoreline suggests. And then, such are the vagaries of football, followed it up with two more wins, at Chesterfield and home to Port Vale. The nine points gleaned made relegation a mathematical impossibility and lifted the team towards mid-table respectability. It meant that on Saturday April 28th the Zimmer Boys could look forward to a worry-free final Away Day of the season.
Simon Head
The Zimmer Boys on Tour
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