Gillingham boss Gareth Ainsworth celebrated Saturday’s winning goal in front of the away fans and thanked them for their backing.
Ainsworth made six changes to his team from the previous weekend, after his side were booed off at the end of a 3-0 loss to Oldham. It was a completely different feel this weekend as a late Robbie McKenzie goal clinched a 1-0 win at Barrow.
Report: Barrow 0 Gillingham 1
The Gills boss admitted he didn’t even know who scored the winner at the time, as he ran over to celebrate with the 237 travelling supporters.
“I hope nobody left early,” joked the Gills boss. “I hope the 237 were right there at the end because they would have missed out on a treat.
“I wish [the goal] had been [scored] in front of them, but to see it flying there. I didn’t know who’d scored it. Me and [goalkeeper coach] Deren ran to the fans to say ‘Thank you’. Thank you for sticking with us. Thank you for turning up.
“There could have been 30 people there thinking, ‘That was rubbish last week against Oldham – ‘what’s the point?’ Because it’s your club and I love managing your club and I will put it on teams and we’ll go together on this journey.
“There was relief and a thankfulness to the fans. It hurt me last week. It did. With near enough 700 games [as manager] I should be able to brush that off. But it does. It hurts. It hurts a lot.
“I am an emotional guy. I live on making people happy and trying to do things for people. When the fans went like that at the end [last Saturday], I’m like, ‘I let them down as much as anyone’.
“That’s a payback. Thank you for staying with me, the ones who came up and thank you to the ones who are going to come next week against Fleetwood.
“It was outstanding. A really, really good feeling and the seven hours home will probably feel like six and a half!”
The Gills had the better of the few chances in the game against Barrow.
Ronan Hale hit the woodwork, McKenzie put an earlier chance wide and Andy Smith should have done better with a header from a corner, but with 90+13 minutes on the clock the decisive moment finally came.
Lenni Cirino’s corner wasn’t cleared properly and McKenzie fired home to win it.
Ainsworth said: “I said to the kit man, Brad, ‘who scored?’ He said, ‘I don’t know, but we’ve scored’. I said, ‘Alright, that counts!’
“I thought it was Sam Vokes but it was Robbie McKenzie and I was absolutely fine with that. He had an outstanding game.
“The scenes in the dressing room afterwards were fantastic.”
Ainsworth acknowledged it was a tricky game to watch at times but said: “We’re away at Barrow, all right? This pitch looks okay from the camera’s point of view. It’s bobbly as hell. It’s horrible.
“We made Barrow look really poor. People will say that Barrow are poor. We made them look poor. You’ve got to give some credit to my boys, because they made Barrow look very average.
“We had the majority of the chances. We hit the post. We should have scored from the corner.
“What a way to win the game. I am so proud of my boys.
“From last week’s feeling after the game, that was totally different, because we knew we were the better team. We knew that we had the territory.
“I’m really, really pleased with how we’ve won the game. Fifteen seconds to go is not a bad time to score the first goal of the game!”
