Accrington rain on Gillingham’s parade but hope for new era holds

Gillingham’s American owners have ridden meteorological and ­metaphorical storms this week, on either side of the Atlantic.

So the ­miserable north Kent drizzle and Dara Costelloe’s devastating injury-time winner that dampened the end of Brad and Shannon Galinson’s visit to the UK must be put into some sort of perspective.

Defeat robbed the Gills of a chance to return to the top of League Two and extended their losing run to three successive games. But at least the future for the owners’ home and their football club looks clearer than it did this time last week.

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Thankfully the 160mph winds of Hurricane Milton largely swirled around their Tampa homestead and their son, still stateside, was able to report a clean bill of health for the family. Then they weathered a potential maelstrom here at the club – removing from the board the ­former owner Paul Scally who has been ­synonymous with Gillingham for nearly three decades.

Having initially helped the new owners during the transition, at a fans’ forum on Thursday night Brad Galinson claimed, “his treatment of the club’s staff and his ­management of club assets” had now made Scally’s position untenable and had left them no option but to call an ­extraordinary general meeting ­earlier in the day.

There were 14 goals scored in the two League One games that took place on Saturday, with lowly Shrewsbury securing just their second win of the season, winning 5-3 at fellow strugglers Crawley. The hosts went down to 10 men just after half-time when Josh Flint was booked twice in the space of three minutes and the Shrews took full advantage, scoring four second-half goals, two of them by George Lloyd.

Peterborough and Rotherham had to settle for a 3-3 draw after a ding-dong contest at London Road in which the visitors led 3-1 at one stage. Posh bagged two goals in as many minutes to surge back after the break, but neither side could find a winner in the final half hour. Wrexham's clash with fellow high-flyers Lincoln and Birmingham versus Cambridge were among the games postponed due to international call-ups.

In League Two, Port Vale went top thanks to a hard-fought 1-0 win at MK Dons, with Antwoine Hackford netting the only goal. Doncaster sit in second after being held 1-1 at home by Crewe, while Notts County clung on to third place after David McGoldrick's 94th-minute strike clinched a last-gasp 2-2 draw at Chesterfield. Paddy Madden had opened the scoring for the Spireites after six minutes but County twice came from behind to seal a point.

Elsewhere, Matthew Stevens' hat-trick fired AFC Wimbledon to a thumping 4-0 triumph over beleaguered Carlisle, who are now rock bottom and have won just once since 17 August. Morecambe picked up their first league victory of the campaign at the 11th time of asking to go above them, stunning high-flying Barrow courtesy of Ben Lee Tollitt's 82nd minute effort.

Swindon and Cheltenham played out an entertaining west country derby at Whaddon Road, with the visitors holding out for a 3-2 win despite leading 3-0 at the hour mark. Goals from George Miller and Ethon Archer set up a grandstand finish but Swindon held on in the battle of the Robins.

Accrington won 2-1 at Grimsby thanks to Dara Costelloe's dramatic stoppage-time winner, while Harrogate edged out Newport 1-0 and Andy Cook's brace helped Bradford consign Tranmere to a 2-0 defeat at Prenton Park. Nigel Adkins' side have now gone six league matches without a win. Salford's indifferent form continued as they were beaten 2-1 at home by Grimsby.

The two League Two games postponed on Saturday were Walsall versus Bromley and Fleetwood's home clash with Colchester.

Dominic Booth

Scally still owns 30% of the club, was in the room for the meeting, and insists he plans to appeal after the verdict was reported as an emphatic 311 to 11 in favour of a parting of the ways. The announcement of his expulsion at the forum was greeted with a loud cheer and it felt more like the toppling of a despotic leader than the end of half a lifetime of ­controversial but undoubted ­devotion to the club.

The 69-year-old had not felt able to attend games all season but ­technically this was the first time Gillingham had kicked off without him involved in the running of the club since the spring of 1995. He had taken them to the Championship and kept the wolves from the door, but when the Galinsons took over two days before Christmas 2022 the club were holding up the entire league, with Scally struggling to continue to find funds to lift them from the doldrums.

Football will continue to be a fickle beast, with popularity dictated by the most recent results. Even at the forum, Mark Bonner opened by saying, “We should have held this two weeks ago, when I was a genius.”

He had lectured his players for most of the past week to try to correct the basics, but it was another below-par performance that ended with boos from the crowd.

Bonner admitted: “We gave them too many chances and the ­second goal was a disgrace. We were so easy to work through. The ­levels have got to go up miles and the ­character has got to go up miles. The lads have let themselves down in the last ­couple of matches because they have been ­average, and average is not good enough for us.”

Certainly, it was nowhere near good enough against Accrington and Costelloe should have given them the lead in the 35th minute when left completely unmarked 12 yards out to sidefoot a shot that the goalkeeper, Glenn Morris, did well to turn behind.

Gillingham finally woke up just before the break when Marcus Wyllie drilled a low shot just wide. Then Remeao Hutton’s floated cross four minutes after the break drifted all the way to Armani Little who drove an unstoppable left-footed shot into the Accrington net.

The visitors were far from done, though, and when Gillingham ­struggled to clear the ball on the hour, Woods fired a deflected shot into the top corner from 20 yards. Morris went off injured in the 72nd ­minute and his deputy in the Gillingham goal, Luca Ashby-Hammond, could do nothing to stop Costelloe cutting through the heart of his defence and sliding his shot inside the far post for Accrington’s first away points of the season.