Manchester City v Gillingham 2nd Division Play Off Final 1999 23 Years Today.

Psychedelic Casual said:
It was some journey to end up there from where we were as a club in the late 70s n’all.
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Yes, that needs saying, too. We are a club that have gone from pretty high up, to way, way down among the dead men, to right back up again. Who can say as much? Who can say that they've had that education?
 
Wonder if anyone ever thinks about the other man's point of view? Suppose not. I do, from time to time.

It so happens that a few weeks ago, after the Villa match, I caught the train out from Victoria to Whitstable on the Kentish coast to see friends there for the day. It stops at Gillingham. So naturally as the train stood in the station I thought about all this. I know nothing whatsoever about Gillingham, other than that match. From the train window, it looked thoroughly grim.
I take a look at their results from time to time. They've just been relegated to League 2, i.e. the old Fourth Division in reality. I wonder if any of them looked at our result against Villa, the celebrations, the pitch invasion etc., and just thought bitterly “Fuck, we bloody nearly beat this lot!”
I don't think we would have, but if we had lost that match, and if we had gone into receivership…?
Alternative histories.
 
I'm an exiled Manc in saarf London and when I made my way into town that morning I don't know why I was so shocked to see so many Gills fans passing through Victoria (which is the main terminus for Kent trains) - I just kinda forgot about them! So many family groups of up to four generations making their way to Wembley, sort of nice, I suppose, but also grossly unfair when most of them would have been attending their first ever game (and perhaps last), whilst so many Blues were left ticketless because of the 50/50 (I think?) allocation.
Anyway, WHAT A DAY! Absolutely brilliant. A Charlton supporting mate came up with me in the hope of snagging a ticket, but no chance, not even in Gills end, and he ended up watching in a pub nearby which he said was rammed with Blues. We ended up at a gig (a Kosovo benefit thing) at a little place in Kentish Town with quite a line up, incl Weller, Ray Davies, Noel blowing away a largely blue audience with Supersonic, a Bolton fan there for the next day's play-off swearing his boy would grow up a Blue. First pub after the match a group had already impressively created, and were singing, the following:
They all laughed at Christopher Columbus, when he said the world was round,
They all laughed at Franny when he took us down,
They all laughed when Taylor and Asaba scored for the Gills, and how,
But JOE JOE JOE, who's got the last laugh now?
 
AliBobbyJ said:
Often forgotten: Gillingham should have had a penalty at 2-2 in extra time. Richard Edghill, or maybe it was Whitley, caught their player as he was cutting in from the by-line. Ref let it go. Looked clear as day on the tv in the pub we were in after leaving at 0-2 down.
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Just for balance, City should have had a pen within the first minute. Perhaps you missed the kick off.
 
Around that period I saw
Lovebitesandeveryfing said:
Wonder if anyone ever thinks about the other man's point of view? Suppose not. I do, from time to time.

It so happens that a few weeks ago, after the Villa match, I caught the train out from Victoria to Whitstable on the Kentish coast to see friends there for the day. It stops at Gillingham. So naturally as the train stood in the station I thought about all this. I know nothing whatsoever about Gillingham, other than that match. From the train window, it looked thoroughly grim.
I take a look at their results from time to time. They've just been relegated to League 2, i.e. the old Fourth Division in reality. I wonder if any of them looked at our result against Villa, the celebrations, the pitch invasion etc., and just thought bitterly “Fuck, we bloody nearly beat this lot!”
I don't think we would have, but if we had lost that match, and if we had gone into receivership…?
Alternative histories.
Click to expand...
Around that time I saw City a couple of times at The Priestfield(?) Stadium.Not gonna lie (getting into 'Nessa mode' after that earlier post!), although Kent has some very nice areas Gillingham probably isn't one of them! Apologies to anyone from that neck of the woods btw!
In a City fanzine some years back after we played there someone wrote 'If Kent is the garden of England ,Gillingham must be the compost heap! '
As for the Play Off Final, whenever I speak to non City fans I always emphasise that 'the Dickov game was( and probably always will be) the most important City game I've ever been to .Obviously not the best quality or most glamorous but the most important!
Most knowledgeable fans totally get it!
Had we not one the Premier League in 2012 obviously we wouldn't have had 'that moment', but we won it playing exceptional football 2 years later. In truth I think we would also have also won it in 2013 as we were better than The Rags(take RVP out of that team they would have been nowhere near us!) as the general feeling was that we rested on our laurels to a certain extent in 2012/13.
The following decade of memorable games fantastic players and managers and really good football, I feel would still have without doubt followed.
It has all been said a million times but had Dickov not scored? It is all hypothetical now, and all about different opinions and interpretations, but who knows?
 
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