By Nathan Jackson
August 1 2010

Andy Hessenthaler has returned to manage Gillingham after Stimson left the club at the end of last season. The club have been generally one of the poorer sides in the entire Football League in recent years, suffering relegation in three of the last six seasons, only Luton Town could better than after their three relegations in a row.

Gillingham were one of those sides who were tipped to do well last season after winning the League Two Playoff Final agaisnt Shrewsbury. A 5-0 win over Swindon Town on the opening day seemingly gave the Gills the good start they wanted and everything appeared to be going well, but they were quickly in a relegation battle.

They were involved in the relegation battle pretty much all season and only secured back to back league victories once, both victories coming in September. League wins were few and far between but their key strength was playing at home. During the season they beat Swindon, Huddersfield, Leeds, Southampton and Millwall, all of whom chased promotion throughout the season.

Infact, it's amazing that a team that got relegated actually had the second best home wins record outside of the top eight. Gillingham also only lost 3 at home, something only four teams bettered. Infact, the reason for their relegation is obvious, they only picked up six points on the road. You'd have to go back to a 1-0 victory at Rochdale on May 2nd 2009 to find Gillingham's last win on the road in the league.

Mark Stimson left the club at the end of last season as he had overseen both of Gillingham's relegations in the last three seasons and he has been replaced by Andy Hessenthaler. Hassenthaler returns for a second spell after initially managing the Gills between the 2000/1 and 2004/5 seasons.

Hessenthaler left after a 4-1 home defeat to Crewe in November 2004 which left Gillingham in the relegation zone. They ended the season relegated to League One. Under Hessenthaler they had been a relatively comfortable midtable team. He left with a record of 77 wins from 228 league games, 97 defeats and 54 draws, but it's safe to say he generally did a good job keeping Gillingham realistically punching above their weight.

Whether Hessenthaler can get Gillingham up to that level again is a very debateable issue. He has never managed at this level and his only experience in recent years was a very brief playing spell at Barnet a few years back. A lot of managers who have managed at a higher level before coming to this level often seem to have the impression that League Two is just kick and rush, and that's why a lot of relegated sides often struggle as they get the tactics very wrong.

The biggest challenge for Hessenthaler when he returned was to replace Simeon Jackson. The striker hadn't actually left when he arrived but it was just a matter of time before he left, and it was Norwich who won the battle for his signature. Jackson scored 35 League goals in his 101 games for Gillingham, a fine record by anyone's standards at any level. In his only season at this level for Gillingham, not only did he score all three of Gillingham's goals in the Playoffs, his goals also won Gillingham 13 points during the 2008/9 season, Gillingham would have finished 12th without those points.

They have replaced him with someone who could nicely be described as twice the player that Jackson is.....mainly because he is twice the size. Adebayo Akinfenwa was a handful for the League Two defences last season, mainly because he was also a bulldozer full. There's no nice way of putting it actually, the reason Akinfenwa was a handful was because he was just fat and wouldn't have looked out of place in a sumo wrestling match.

Northampton only challenged for promotion because of his goals and he gained the Cobblers nine points through his goals. I think that Gillingham are better than Northampton so he goals might not mean as much to the team as they have generally better players who can contribute more. If Gillingham can get Akinfenwa to lose the excessive weight then they will be laughing.....maybe they could attach a fishing rod to Adebayo's back and have a mars bar attached just out of his reach.

Akinfenwa is just one of a few players to come into Gillingham during the pre-season with Steven Payne, Andy White, Cody McDonald, Danny Spiller and Lance Cronin also joining. Mark Bentley, Luis Cumbers, Jacob Erskine, Barry Fuller, John Nutter Dennis Oli Andy Pugh Garry Richards, Stuart Lewis, Adam Miller, Simon Royne, Tom Winter and James Walker all left the club.

The summer also saw one of the more unusual pieces of news from around League Two when Gillingham went for a friendly in France again Calais, turned up for a 3pm kick off, only to be told the French club didn't think the kick off was until 6pm.

Overall, I think Gillingham certainly have a good chance of challenging for promotion but Akinfenwa is certainly no Jackson and that could be ultimately the difference between marking the Playoffs or not.

Can Hessenthaler return the good times to Gillingham?

Discussion started by theimps.ka (IP Logged), 01/08/2010 13:42

theimps.ka
01/08/2010 13:42

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