John Seager's 30 for 30: Day 3

A Cunning look back of 30 days which have changed my life over the past 30 years

Day 3: August 23^rd 1997 – My first ever Gillingham game.

Evening all,

The game of football is our national pastime and to remember your first ever game is a special memory which will stay with you for the rest of your life. For me though it is slightly different.

I have been to a few Football matches during my early teen years, mainly involving the football club where i live Sittingbourne FC. This was when they were on the brink of playing in the Conference – I even was at Central Park where they won the Southern Division title in a 4-2 win over Clevedon Town in 1993 – but i aspired to watch different levels of football as i had no chance of going to see Liverpool games as i was living in Kent, I saw a promotion to see a few match with the local football league side Gillingham FC. And i decided to go and watch them.

It was part of promotion with a national newspaper and they were offering football fans free tickets to go and see Football league games across the country for free. So i decided to take up the offer to go and see Gillingham FC play against Walsall at the Priestfield stadium.

The Date of the match was the 23^rd August 1997. I went with my mum – as i was too young to go to football on my own – and my brother David. And we were sat in the Gordon road stand, which was just recently built during the summer of 1997.

What can i remember about the match itself?  Well it wasn’t the best game to go and watch but there was plenty of action and goals from new midfielder Paul Smith and Striker Ade Akinbyi gave Gillingham a 2-0 lead before Walsall got a goal back in the second half  but they couldn't equalise and Gillingham won the game 2-1.

After the game, I felt that i enjoyed the experience of watching football at Priestfield and i felt that i wanted to go back for more matched during the season.

I did go back for a number of games during the rest of the season. I didn’t go to many Tuesday night games though as this would clash with my school work.

Looking back, i didn’t realise at the time how much this club would be part of my life. But i believe that everything that has a long association with in life needs to have a genesis – a starting point. And for Gillingham, this was my start of a long association with them.