Reality Check: Gillingham at Home.

The question to ponder here is what exactly do referees say to players who have committed offences; especially the brutal and heinous ones? These are professional footballers remember? Football is their livelihood and their lives. They train, train, play and train: set pieces, tackling, heading, off-sides … the whole nine yards.

So … does the referee need to remind them that, barging somebody over, thuggishly from behind is against the rules? Does the referee need to remind said offender (for which read cheat or bully) that this behaviour is not allowed, will not be tolerated?

Or should the referee simply blow the whistle and dig out the red card?

We played Gillingham on Sunday evening (yes I know it’s weird, but we’ll get to that okay?) and Gillingham were out to intimidate, scare and rattle the Walsall team. At one point James Chambers was literally bounced over the goal line and onto the pitch side wall by a blatantly unfair push in the back when shielding the ball from a Gillingham player. The ref spent an inordinate amount of time “talking” to the man responsible and instead of, justifiably sending him off pulled the yellow card.

What?

A Chelsea player, stamping on the foot of an opponent got sent off this week because his actions were deliberate and could have seriously damaged a fellow player. This was exactly the same: Chambers could have been literally taken out of the game for a number of games after the crash into the wall: a sold object. Deliberate! Intentional!

Now I do blame the player to some extent. He did it after all. But a greater responsibility lies with the officials. Make an example of these thuggish tactics and they will not continue.

This ref made enemies of both sets of fans during the game with mind-boggling displays of ineptitude all over the pitch, favouring neither one side nor the other. I do not think I have ranted too mush about refereeing decisions in this blog, so trust me: this ref was a clown.

Gillingham sacked Peter Taylor their manager some weeks ago and are currently operating some kind of management by committee structure. We joked about each of the four choosing a different line a la Football Manager computer game (“You get to choose the goalkeeper this week, I’ll choose the defenders”). They were beaten in the other Area Final of the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy by Bristol City and were, understandably out to get some respect back. Gillingham is a fair journey on a fair day, but with a six p.m. kick off on a Sunday evening ? Their few travelling supporters have my deepest respect.

This was a rearranged fixture, arranged for Sunday by negotiation. We cannot play our Sunday games earlier, because the Bescot Sunday Market takes precedence: so I set out, picked up my brother and parked up, feeling rather surreal.

“It’s not cold,” my brother cheerfully remarked. It got cold during the game and was well towards freezing as we trudged back to the car.

Cully is still tremendously excited about getting to Wembley and we spent most of the first half going over getting-to-Wembley options. The tickets go on sale to season ticket holders on Friday. A lot of the game went by, all but un noticed. I wondered if our players might be a little awe-struck; concentrating on staying fit and uninjured so as to be available for the Wembley game. And, while I was wondering I was hoping not. We still have a chance of play off places and promotion and that won’t happen if players won’t go in where it’ll hurt.

The players might have been tired and emotionally drained but there was no chickening out of challenges and we were largely in control of the game, but – as has happened so many times this season we were in little danger of actually scoring: on top, a lot of shots, but nothing to show for it.

James Chambers, nursing that injury no doubt didn’t come out for the second half; replaced by O’Connor.

Tom Bradshaw had some very neat, edge of the penalty area footwork and a tidy shot, but immediately looked uncomfortable, quickly replaced by Ashley Grimes – who hasn’t scored for a couple of years. And, with the defence expecting an off-side flag Gillingham broke away and they are one nil up. Deep joy for the travelling supporters, probably imagining a happy journey home at that point.

But we went on the Bradshaw-less rampage. Cook playing well, Sawyers missing a shot, Forde showing good control (amazing how little space players like Cook need down the touchline to get by defenders) and, finally thanks to a scrappy challenge from O’Connor  who else but Ashley Grimes stuck the ball into the net! Easy to see how relieved he was. But Bradshaw’s injury looked serious , so – with Manset leaving us to go the Cheltenham Town – Grimes might be our main man for a few weeks.  Please note, however we did pounce (if that is the correct verb) to secure a month long loan of rising Manchester City teenage star, Jordy Hiwula apparently a striker too.

Final score one all, not a great deal of help in our crawl towards promotion, but being a Walsall supporter is never easy. If it was, surely we’d get more supporters at home games.