John Seager's 30 for 30: Day 7

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

Day 7:  28^th May 2000: Gillingham’s Play-off Success

Evening all,

As the old saying goes; ‘all good things must come to an end’, and for the 1999 – 2000 season with Gillingham it was an excellent climax to a season i will never forget.

First of all we went on a promotion party to Wrexham which didn’t happen and there were over five thousand Gills travelling back which was seen by me as the worse away journey back EVER!!!

Then during the playoffs we had the ‘Hess’ Miracle against Stoke City at the Britannia Stadium. Where during the 5^th minute of added time, player – and soon to be manager – Andy Hessenthaler scored a screamer to send the game back to Priestfield Stadium on a knife edge – but Stoke fell apart during the second leg and for the second successive season, Gillingham are going to Wembley.

The game was played on the 28^th May 2000, and the atmosphere surrounding the match was a lot more different than the game nearly 12 months before.

People who i was travelling with were much more confident that we can do it this time and i was even thinking about how do we celebrate the journey back should we win. Even though we were up against a decent Wigan side I was confident that we will win.

On the day itself, we outnumbered the Wigan fans on a ratio of 4 to 1. So we were more vocal during the game and that played a part during the build upto kick off.

Once the game kicked off though we dominated the first half, and just after the half way point we took the lead with a goal i think that should have never counted. The ball was crossed in and Iffy shot towards the goal but the ball did not go pass the line. But the Linesman did give the goal. So although we were 1-0 up it felt that it was a goal given to us that we didn’t deserve. Was it a sign that good things were going our way.

But during the second half, Wigan got back into the game with an excellent goal from Simon Haworth and Wigan began to control the game hoping to score a second goal. However they in fact down to 10 men after Kevin Sharp received a red card for a second yellow card foul. Wigan had to play the whole period of extra time with 10 men, yet another sign that we could come out on top today?

But at the start of extra time, it was a disaster as Wigan won a penalty and scored to make it 2-1. I was down but i did not give up hope and i got behind the team to get back into the game. Although we had chance after chance it seemed that we would not get back into the game.

But then it was one of our super subs which got the gills back into the game. Steve Butler scored his last ever goal for the club as he headed a cross from Godden into the back of the net. I was relieved but still concerned that the game would go to penalties as this may bring back bad memories from 12 months ago.

But within four minutes i was jumping for joy as the other super sub Andy Thomson scored Gillingham’s most famous goal to win s the game and get us promoted. I could not believe that we retook the lead with a little over two minutes left in the game.

Once the final whistle went, there was a lot of joy and screaming mainly from me as we secured promotion to the old first division.  And the journey back home was one where a lot of drinking and partying was done on the train back to Kent.

It was an excellent way to end a remarkable first season as a season ticket holder with the club.

And i could not wait to renew and continue the journey again as the gills go into a new territory which the club have never been in before.