Gillingham go into the weekend’s game with Southend United looking for their first win and first goals of the new season – a fact that isn’t lost on first team coach Steve Lovell.
He spoke to KSN in the run up to the 30th anniversary of another meeting with the Shrimpers that Lovell himself played no small part in…
Back to the present to begin with, and Lovell admitted that the side were perhaps being rightly questioned for not finding the net as yet.
“I don’t think it is unfair as forwards are always judged on their goal scoring no matter what they are,” Lovell admitted, “whether they’re a centre forward who run in behind or a big battling centre forward – people will always look at them and question how many goals they’ve scored.”
“They’re there to be hit themselves, they’re there to take the hits themselves, so they have to take the responsibilities. If they’re not scoring, they’ve got to take the backlash – they’ve got to take the criticism.”
“But on the flip side of that, when they do start scoring goals, they get the plaudits and the all the headlines. So as a centre forward you have to take that – you’ve got to have a thick skin and you’ve got to get on with it and roll your sleeves up and say “right, I’ve got to continue to do this and work hard as I know things will change!” and that’s what we’ve been saying to our forwards since pre-season – keep doing the right things; keep getting on the end of things and it will come.”
“It might mean that it comes off the end of his toe or off his back side, but it’ll be in the back of the net, and straight away the confidence will be back there. And that is something that, as a centre forward, you cannot wait to happen – you’ve had that feeling before and believe you me, you can’t wait to get it back!”
Lovell would know that feeling as during his own Gills career of scoring just short of one hundred goals in 230 odd appearances, he had scoring droughts.
One that the Giils coach remembers was at the start of his time at Priestfield and came to an end when he finally netted his first goals for them against Saturday’s opponents Southend United in a never to be forgotten afternoon for the club ironically thirty years ago this weekend.
“I remember the first goal that day so well as saying about goal scorers as we were, when I first came to the club I had a bit of a knee injury and I’d played a few games and hadn’t scored at the start of the season and it seemed to go on and on! And as I just said, I couldn’t wait to score my first goal here. And when it went in, it really did lift me and everyone and you think “Thank god for that!” and then obviously that day the next three came along as well and before I knew where I was, I’d scored four and the team had scored eight!”
“It didn’t just lift myself, it lifted the whole crowd and the rest of the team too as well as everyone around me. Goal-scorers do that – you can be a great goalkeeper making great saves, but at the end of the day goal-scorers are the ones who win games, because he scored a goal today, or two, or three…” or like the Gills coach did on that bright August Priestfield afternoon in 1987, four times as Southend were sent back to Essex on the wrong end of an 8-1 score-line!
There have been cries from some areas of the Gills support for the management team to give Liam Nash his first League start after his impressive scoring record in the lower leagues.
Yet there are also those who say that the step up could be too much – that was a theory that Lovell quickly quashed.
“I think it would be a concern if he does play in say the next twelve games and doesn’t do anything! Then it could be a concern that he can’t make the step up. But you can’t judge anyone until they’re given a fair run and give him a go!”
“He’s come into the football club in pre-season and done reasonably well – he’s come on in the last couple of games and done quite well in those appearances. So, let’s see what happens to him in the next six weeks or so and I think that only time will tell and only time on the football field will tell!”
“We’re a unit all in this together and I can’t wait for things to change – that light at the end of the tunnel is coming and it will come. I wouldn’t say that I’m frustrated at this moment – I just can’t wait for that time to happen as when it does happen, it’s going to be great for all of us as we’re all pulling in the same direction.”
“At the end of the day, when we started we were favourites to go down this year, so straight away everything’s against us – so from that point of view let them! We’re focused on what we want to do and we’re focused on doing it and when we do it, it will be brilliant!”