Marked for Andy Smith
From our football correspondent
Steady
The dugout23 Aug 2027
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Market23 Aug 2027
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Gillingham people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Market23 Aug 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Player ratings23 Aug 2027
Joe Rothwell goes up and wins it — 7.77
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.77 for the rest of it.
Market23 Aug 2027
The offer from Shrewsbury Town for Sam Vokes was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Transfer targets23 Aug 2027
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Middlesbrough is saying, and nobody at Gillingham is enjoying the guessing.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Ben Garrity in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gillingham this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom23 Aug 2027
7 academy graduates step up at Gillingham
Senior shirt numbers handed to boys the coaches have known since they were twelve. Most will not make it and all of them have already done the hard part.
Transfer targets23 Aug 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Sunderland have kept their man, and Gillingham go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market2 Aug 2027
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Rotherham United waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Gillingham is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Market2 Aug 2027
Remeao Hutton hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Gillingham can pretend not to have heard.
Transfer targets2 Aug 2027
Everything agreed with Luton Town, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Squad2 Aug 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gillingham this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets2 Aug 2027
Gillingham asked and Middlesbrough said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Market2 Aug 2027
The name of Sam Vokes has come up in conversations Gillingham were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Somebody has moved past him. It is not a dropping and it is worse than one, because a dropping is about a Saturday and this is about where he stands.
Squad2 Aug 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Tom Flanagan and Gillingham agree another 1 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Market2 Aug 2027
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Gillingham, another week without a signature from Ben Garrity.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market28 Jun 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Tatsuhiro Sakamoto and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets28 Jun 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Burnley have kept their man, and Gillingham go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Transfer targets28 Jun 2027
Altamura have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Squad28 Jun 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Danilo Orsi and Gillingham agree another 3 years.
The dugout28 Jun 2027
Eli King knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Eli King trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market28 Jun 2027
Aaron Rowe is free to find somewhere else
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Gillingham has been clear about where Aaron Rowe stands, which is more than many ever get.
Market28 Jun 2027
The Dixon Vera story refuses to die
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Dixon Vera signs something — a contract at Gillingham or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Sam Gale has seen what the next man earns
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Gillingham that is a harder question to answer.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad29 Mar 2027
Ben Garrity and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Dixon Vera falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Armani Little, and the manager let it.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Gillingham, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Looking ahead29 Mar 2027
Barrow AFC next, and one man in the Gillingham dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
The manager makes Andy Smith a promise
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Gillingham. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Squad29 Mar 2027
The shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.
Market29 Mar 2027
Crystal Palace had somebody in the stand with a notebook, and he was not there for the pies. Watching is free; the next step is not.
Looking ahead29 Mar 2027
Looking ahead: Barrow AFC at home
A side in position 21 visits next. The result will not make anybody’s season and it could quietly break the shape of one, which is why the manager has been watching the video since Sunday.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market7 Sep 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Gillingham close the window on a squad of their own making
14 in and 4 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
Gillingham had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Millwall, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
Gillingham asked and Portsmouth said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Brad Potts has outgrown this division
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Gillingham know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
Market7 Sep 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Squad7 Sep 2026
13 new faces, and Gillingham are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
Hull City have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Squad7 Sep 2026
It will be explained as a change for the team and it may even be one. Nobody who has worn one believes that, and neither does the man who has just had it taken away.