Gillingham F.C (H) - League 2 - 8th February 2025
There must be some mistake, a Barrow home game, Give 'Em Beans! on sale and there isn't a Yellow weather warning for getting blown clean off the slag bank and being put through the Strand Car Wash? It's still a bit nipply out there but the apricity of the February sun is warming my face and making me wish I'd packed my Poundland shades. I'm not tempted to pull a Farman and borrow a cap, I'm way too old to look that cool.
There's still optimism drifting on the westerly breeze as we head into Andy Whing's 4th game in charge. The honk of Stephen Clemence has been Fabreezed into oblivion by both ourselves and the opposition. We face a Gillingham side that, much like ourselves, has developed a hard-wired aversion to winning. And like us, they have slipped down the table faster than a greased hot dog spilled from the bun of early season highs. HMS Piss the League has gone full Costa Concordia. There is a collective tumescence at the return of Ben Whitfield, and he's about to make his second debut, if such a thing could exist. He gets a reception equal to Take That walking on stage at a Butlins Big Weekender. I'm sure I saw someone faint, but it was possibly just a stumble on the Holker St terrace where the Going is still crumbly.
The seemingly universally despised referee Joyce gets proceedings underway, in front of another 3K+ crowd including a very respectable 277 travellers (not that kind, calm down Nigel).
Someone has put the Duracells back into Kian Spence; he's making sure everyone in the crowd gets a good view of his new five quid angle grinder haircut by covering every inch of the pitch. He strikes a post on 12 minutes from a tight angle. Referee Joyce gesticulates two penalty shouts away in quick succession, one each. He also sees fit to book Campbell for simulation but Gbode escapes the same punishment. Go figure. Bradley Dack, who's unfathomably styled himself on a Dolmio puppet, sees yellow on the half hour. That's the card, not a glance upwards at his dishwater blonde barnet. The half comes to a conclusion with Barrow playing industriously and with more possession, but failing to convert. One could be forgiven for thinking here we go again...
As the cliché goes, we need a big second half. Potential Herbal Essences brand ambassador Aaron Pressley is having his best minutes in a Barrow shirt, leading the line well, good hold up play and some delicate lay-offs. However, it's Campbell who sets up Jackson for the half's first big chance. Unfortunately, the ball hits a potato just before he strikes it and it ends up troubling the Crossbar render in the Mahoney zone. Barrow remain in the ascendancy; a cross from Newby finds Pressley's luscious locks and his looping header is tipped over. The breakthrough! The ball sits up nicely for Kian Spence, who unleashes one of his biannual thunderbastards from 25 yards, which their keeper is fortunate not to get a hand to, for fear of a traumatic degloving.
Barrow are now dominating, the makeshift defence including an 'I'll do anything gaffer' Sam Foley at right full back; they are putting up deckchairs and watching the action. Spence, Gotts and Campbell are busier than the Carlisle United shirt printing department, breaking down play and covering every blade of mud. Pressley is replaced by Acquah, who almost immediately gets involved with some good hold up play, feeding Jackson to cross for the omnipresent Spence to finish from close range with a cramped leg. The 6 minutes of injury time may have once caused a chorus of quivering bumholes amongst the faithful, but today we add a third. Smith, very pleasingly, in the right place at the right time to notch Barrow's third and his second with the second of his two total touches. The type of stats we’ve needed all season.
The final whistle and the crowd stay behind to applaud the team off the pitch. But wait, as hackneyed comedian Jimmy Cricket used to say, and there's more. He's not, is he? He is. Andy Whing exercises the ghost of Pete Wilds past by fist pumping it into next Tuesday. Give! 'Em! BEANS!!!
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