In the club’s 123 year history, only 52 players have made more than 200 appearances for Gillingham Football Club.
On Boxing Day at London Road Peterborough, Cody McDonald will join that elite band as he pulls the Gills shirt on for the 200th time.
Cody has been talking exclusively to KSN about his time at Priestfield…
Many would be surprised that the striker had played that many games for the club; was Cody? “I wouldn’t say it’s a surprise that I’ve played 200 games”, Cody told us.
“I’m very proud to have done so. I think it’s a great achievement to have done so with one club and I’m really happy about doing that. Surprised though? Not really as I have been at the club for a while now.”
“None of the 199 games really stand out for me as a whole, but there have been some goals that I’m really proud of – late winners; winners; things like that, but it’s been great for a lot of the time and hopefully it will continue.”
“My favourite goal was against Walsall at home a couple of seasons ago which could have got goal of the season so I’m told and against Shrewsbury at home last season – quite enjoyed that one too.”
“I’ll always remember one goal when I was on loan for seven games the year we won the league, when a long ball forward by Matt Fish I think bounced over the keeper and I “helped” it into the empty net like all good strikers should do.”
Cody first burst onto the county’s football scene when he signed for Dartford and scored 14 times in 15 games, but why Dartford we asked?
“My wife was pregnant with twins and I was playing with my local team Witham Town at the time,” Cody admitted.
“I’d left there for one reason or another and I wasn’t going to play for anyone. Then Tony Burman, the Darts boss, got in touch and having played against them, I thought that I’d give training a chance and after one training session, I signed for them.”
“He liked what he saw that night and it gave a little bit extra income for the family as I was a scaffolder at the time. It was a great opportunity to join a side that had just been promoted to the Ryman Premier League and a great dressing room – a couple of the players are still there (Lee Noble and Ryan Hayes) – they played a massive part with me getting my big break in football.”
“I scored a lot of goals in that side and I do have to thank them for my move to Norwich where I spent three and a half years – although of course I spent a season of that on loan here at Priestfield in 2010/2011.”
“I left Norwich and went to Coventry for a couple of years before signing here permanently in 2012/2013.”
“It’s a great feeling playing here in front of the Priestfield crowd – there’s a lot of pride pulling on the Gillingham shirt and playing in front of them, and that’s something that will continue for a few more years yet!”
The club’s recent revival had come to a shuddering stop live on SKY Sports before Cody’s seventh goal of this season sealed the weekend win over MK Dons.
“The way that we lost at Bolton was frustrating – we can’t accept the fact that they’re a better team than us – I don’t think as a player you can ever accept that, we just didn’t perform on the night,” Cody admitted.
“We let ourselves down and we let the people down who travelled to come and watch us. Going into the game, we felt that if we’d have performed we could have got something out of it and unfortunately we didn’t perform on the night.”
“It was important that we put that behind us as quickly as we could and beating MK Dons last weekend was a great help to put right what went wrong on the Monday night.”
He then turned his attention to the club’s Christmas programme. “We’ve got a difficult game on Boxing Day, but if we can pick up points in games like we have ahead of us, it’s such a tight league that you’ll be in and around again at the end.”
“It’s an important part of the season for us as games come thick and fast but I think that will suit our “young” dressing room.”
When pressed, Cody added, “”Younger dressing room” than we’ve had! We had a young group last year, but we’ve got a lot of younger fresh faces in there this season. The squad we’ve got is going to be used to the maximum over the next couple of weeks I would imagine, so hopefully that will work in our favour.”
Finally we asked Cody for his message to all the Gills fans – he said, “I’d just like to ask them to stick with us. I’ve no doubt that it’s been as frustrating for them as it has been for us, because we haven’t done as well as we can, but the backing you’ve given us has been unbelievable and if you stick with us, we’ll hopefully give you something to really cheer about at the end of the season!”