Gillingham head coach Stephen Clemence has taken the positives from last weekend’s postponement ahead of what will be a busy festive schedule.
The team coach got as far as Rugby services last Friday – a 250-mile round trip from Priestfield – but an early postponement at Barrow due to a waterlogged pitch ensured they got no further and any travelling fans were given time to rearrange their weekend plans.
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“I don’t look at it as a bad thing,” said Clemence. “The players are in a good place, they have had plenty of games recently and there are plenty coming up, so to get that little breather before this busy Christmas and New Year period might not be a bad thing.
“We had left on Friday morning and we were a few hours up the motorway. We felt there might be a problem and knew the weather forecast wasn’t great.
“We heard the pitch wasn’t good and knew there was going to be some sort of inspection that day but we still had to plan that the game was going to be on.
“We could have maybe left later and took the chance but then that would have meant an eight or nine-hour bus journey. Had we left at lunchtime we might not have been there until 9pm. That’s not ideal preparation, either.
“We were disappointed it was off. We would have liked to have played the game and we were looking forward to the game, but unfortunately these things happen and we have to move on from it and get ready for the next one.
“Obviously the players still had training to do and they weren’t completely off their feet, you keep them ticking over, but in a full-blown game you can pick up injuries and you can pick up strains or kicks. By having the weekend off from that point of view we haven’t got any of that to worry about.”
The Gills are at home to Bradford City this Saturday before the festive fixtures kick in with games against Forest Green (December 22), Crawley (Boxing Day), Sutton United (December 29) and Colchester United (New Year’s Day).
Bradford’s game last Saturday was also off because of the wet weather and they head to Priestfield boosted by back-to-back league wins under recently-appointed manager Graham Alexander, who replaced Mark Hughes after the Yorkshire side started the season with just three wins from their opening 11 games.
Hughes got the bullet just a day before Neil Harris was sacked at the Gills and two weeks before Alexander was given his marching orders at MK Dons – prior to his swift return to management with the Bantams.
Both the Gills and Bradford are now hoping their new men can get their teams involved in the promotion race.
Gillingham dropped to eighth last weekend, replaced in the top seven by Wimbledon, but Clemence isn’t focusing on the table, confident that strong performances will see them right.
He said: “If performances are good then I think results will take care of themselves. If we are doing okay on that front I would like to think we will do okay come the end of the season, but I am not studying the league table at the moment.
“People have said to me we have gone down a place but we are going to, we didn’t play a game (last weekend). There is a long, long way to go, we are not even halfway through the season.
“We will have to win a lot of games between now and the end of the season if we want to get to where we want, but this squad is more than capable of doing it.
“I believe I have a really good group. I am enjoying working with them every day and as long as we keep getting the performance levels right, we will be okay.”
