With Gillingham’s immediate future in League One secure, KSN has been talking exclusively to Coach Ady Pennock.
In a frank and honest interview the day after the club avoided the drop to League Two, we caught up with Pennock and spoke to him about the game at Sixfields itself and how the events behind the scenes at Priestfield since he was appointed boss following Justin Edinburgh’s sacking in early January have taken their toll on the man himself.
“I’m happy that we didn’t go down that’s for sure!” Ady began our chat with a relieved smile on his face.
“Everyone knows what I said before the game about how bad it would have been for the club to be relegated, so I’m obviously relieved more than anything else.”
“I thought we played very well at Northampton – I really did – we should have won the game really as they didn’t have a shot on target and I thought we were on the front foot from the first whistle to the last and were unfortunate not to get all three points.”
“It was nice to get a clean sheet, but it was so nerve wracking having to wait that five minutes before the Fleetwood game finished.
“It was tough at home too as I know that three of my boys couldn’t take the last ten minutes and walked out of the house and walked round the streets as they just couldn’t hack it anymore!”
The game itself almost started perfectly for the Gills when Cody McDonald won an early penalty, but Josh Wright’s spot kick was magnificently saved by the Northampton keeper.
Ady admitted, “We couldn’t let it get us down – if you miss a penalty you miss a penalty! We couldn’t start thinking “here we go again” or we would have been in trouble.”
“It was all about managing the game and not the occasion as I said beforehand. But even after Josh’s miss, it would have been nice to have a cushion especially given the Fleetwood game.”
“In the second half and in particular the last twenty minutes we were saying that there was no point us sitting back as if Port Vale did score we’d have to match it.”
“We put so much effort into the game even though we did begin to tire in the last ten minutes, I still thought that we could have caught Northampton on the break, with the two front boys (McDonald and Josh Parker) looking so sharp and dangerous and that’s why we didn’t make any changes in the game.”
“I honestly thought that there was only going to be one winner with us scoring the goal to be fair.”
We then spoke about the “non-handshake” between Ady and his predecessor before kick-off. “I was disappointed about what happened at the start,” Ady shrugged, “but it’s all water under the bridge to me.”
“I couldn’t do anything about it – it was just one of those things. After the game he had a chat with me, had a beer in his hand and apologised, so that’s the end of. Worse things have happened at sea as they say, rather than not shaking my hand…”
Like many Gills fans, the strain of the last day at times was too much for Ady as he openly told us.
“With everything that’s gone on over the weeks,” he said, “I wouldn’t have been surprised if Port Vale did score in the time after we had finished because it seemed as though we’d been battling everything and everything was going against us.”
“But I was so chuffed when I heard someone cheer hoping it was our fans as at the time I was standing at the back of the tunnel and it was there that one of the Northampton stewards who told me that we were safe and it was all over.”
“My immediate reaction “thank god for that” as I didn’t know which fans were cheering, if it was ours or Port Vale had scored or whatever. But when he told me that, I came out and saw all of our fans cheering – and they yet again were brilliant on the day; we couldn’t have asked for more from them, the backing they gave us was brilliant again.”
“I was relieved but pleased you know for everyone at the Football Club.”
“It was great that all of the squad travelled – every single one of them and some of them under their own steam – and it was good to see them all, especially those not involved and some of the young kids as well.”
“But they all had their phones on with the latest scores from Fleetwood and I think I did well not to get too carried away with things. But when it got to the last twenty minutes, every time I turned round, I was asking one of them the score…”
Immediately after the game, Ady gave an extremely passionate interview to the BBC which ended with him being overcome with emotion.
We asked him about that. “It was how I felt at the time – it’s how I am!”
Composing himself, Ady said, “It’s how I still feel if I’m honest. I feel like I’ve been hung out to dry a little bit – I’m not one to moan or open up generally as I do keep things reasonably close to my chest, but after the game on Sunday was just the occasion of where we’d stayed in the Division and it just came out… and like I said it was for my family as they’d been through it as well.”
“I had my brother, sister and brother-in-law at Sixfields, but my wife and children were at home – they just couldn’t go, as they were all so nervous after the way we’d all been all week.”
“It was tough, it really was – people don’t realise – but with all this, whether I’m at the Club next year or not – it’s been one hell of a challenge – a massive challenge – for me and my staff, who really have been top draw throughout and absolutely superb.”
In the same BBC interview, Ady admitted that on day one he walked into a dressing room “full of poison and discontentment” – we asked him to elaborate.
“I have come across it before when I’ve inherited dressing rooms such as Forest Green and even when we went into Stoke to be fair!” he explained.
“You will get that as the last manager at any football club had their way of doing things and when a new man comes in, the last manager’s had his favourites playing for him and when the new man comes in, the players aren’t the same and there is discontent.”
“When that happens you must change things as quick as you can and I hoped that we could do that as we had done before at clubs I’d been at.”
“But when you come in as there’s no money on the table, and that’s not down to the Chairman as it had been spent, as he’d invested a lot of money at the start of the season into the squad and so there was nothing that we could do about it in this instance.”
“The Chairman was as frustrated as we all were, but the future of the club is paramount at the end of the day. He could have given me money to go and get players who I wanted to get in January, but he couldn’t afford it.”
“We spoke about it – of course we did – but the future of the club is more important than anything else. Fair play to the Chairman he gave the previous regime a good budget and it didn’t work out. And in what we inherited there was a lot of things going on that I wasn’t happy about, which I couldn’t do anything about because there was nothing left.”
“The biggest worry when we first arrived was the lack of fitness as it was a case of players having Sunday, Monday and Thursday off – and it was the players who told me – and they weren’t training long enough and they were pointing the finger at the last regime which annoyed me, because as a professional footballer if you think you’re not fit enough and don’t do enough, you should have self-pride and do it yourself anyway.”
“Some of them had the excuse which I thought was a load of rubbish really – they didn’t think that they should be doing any extra themselves which was so disappointing!”
“I think it’s unheard of having three days a week off, but who am I to say what’s right and what’s wrong? The thing I didn’t like was the fact that they blamed the last regime, and didn’t look at themselves, they are all professional footballers and they are very lucky really.”
“And for them to say that they didn’t do enough training when they had too many days off was a load of rubbish – they should have been looking at themselves and if they thought they weren’t fit they should have been doing something about it.”
Ady went on, “The finance side of things and everything the Chairman’s put in place really are first class. But the football structure of things? In my opinion there was none – and that had to change.”
“I could easily write a book on the last couple of months as if some of things that have happened over the last weeks, people would think “my God, did this really happen?” – some of the things that have happened you really can’t make up!”
And so what to the future, and the million dollar question – will Ady be in charge come the start of pre-season?
Shrugging again, Ady said, “The Chairman’s now away for a while to consider things. He hasn’t asked me to put together a formal retained list, although I have given him a list of players that I think should be released and a list of those I’d like to see stay, but that is irrelevant at the minute I guess until my own future is sorted out.”
“It’s frustrating for me, but then again any deal has to be right for me as well as the club – of course I want to stay, of course I do, but it’s got to be right on a football side of things.”
“It’s not a given that if the Chairman offered me a contract I’d say yes straight away because I love the football club, but it’s about everything else and it’s got to be right for me.”
KSN Comment (from Football Editor Mike Green) – so after the longest afternoon many Gills fans can remember, they survived! But just why were they even in position in the first place?
A lot of supporters think that the problems came out of this current season. But when you remember that at Christmas 2015, the club were top of League One before falling away to finish 9th last May, it could be argued that the club’s supporters have had to endure relegation football for eighteen months!
So is Ady Pennock the man to take the Gills into 2017/2018? His record since January he himself will admit hasn’t been great, but given that his hands have been completely tied over player movements, even his sternest critic will surely admit that he has at least deserved the opportunity to at least put his own squad together in the summer.
The decision that Chairman Paul Scally has to make in the next few weeks is arguably the most important one that he has made as Gills Chairman as undoubtedly the club is now at a crossroads.
Does he let Pennock build his own squad around the players who he now clearly trusts at the club, or does he bring in his 13th full time manager and start again?
It really is a tough call for Mr Scally – one that all Gills fans hope that he gets right!