A goal from Gillingham striker Macauley Bonne helped knock his former team Charlton out of the FA Cup and was spurred on by the abuse.
Bonne was the target of the away fans at the start of the game but the 28-year-old silenced them with a goal and continued to give the Charlton defence a hard time throughout the second round match at Priestfield.
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He said: “Getting the first goal was a sweet one for me because I was taking some real abuse. Some players could go under but it spurs me on, like I am going to do something to say to you, ‘you keep abusing me and I am going to use it’.
“It helped my performance in the game, it is one of those things, playing against your former club, it happens, you play and score and it’s not nice for them but that’s football, it happened and I’m the one going home with the last laugh aren’t I?!
“I was soaking (the abuse) up, I was loving it. I was getting some bad things out. It went on into the final whistle and I was still getting abuse as I was going down the tunnel, but I am like, ‘okay, we are in the next round and you’re not, there you go, done’
“Getting into the next round and beating them 2-0 is something at the start of the game is something we would have taken all day long.”
That abuse of Bonne did start turning into abuse towards their own team as the Gills dominated throughout against their higher-league opponents.
Bonne said:“We out-played them, we won our battles, sometimes you can abuse and abuse and abuse but when you’re team isn’t performing you have to stop some times don’t you?
“I could have scored two or three, one at the end where I brought the ball down on my knee, I was ready to shoot and got yanked to the floor.
“There were some challenges in the game today, especially the one on Jonny Williams where he has gone in and got a horrible hit, but some stuff happens.”
