Gillingham Chairman Paul Scally has issued a plea to fans who may have seen the incident that led to Garry Richards being stretchered off on Tuesday night.

The 25 year old central defender lasted just fourteen minutes of the League Two encounter with Barnet before an off the ball incident with Bees striker Izale McLeod ended with the Gillingham man suffering a double fracture to his fibula.

In the appeal to Gills fans on the club’s official wesbite, Scally had this to say:

“Everyone at the club is naturally very upset by the injury suffered by Garry Richards during the first half.”

“Unfortunately the incident was not picked up by the official match video, and none of the rest of the team, the management or the match officials had a clear view of what happened.”

“We would therefore like to hear from any supporters who can say they saw exactly what occured.”

“We know that feelings among fans were running high afterwards, mainly because of the extent of the injury, but we need to leave that to one side.”

“Our only interest is finding out precisely what happened, and anyone who can help us with that is asked to contact our Club Secretary, Gwen Poynter, with details. her e-mail address is [email protected], or she can be contacted by phone on the main club number, 01634 300000.”

Richards should now miss the rest of the season because of the injury, adding to boss Andy Hessenthaler’s woes with an already large injury list.

The good news is that Richards shouldn’t need an operation for the injury following a visit to a specialist this afternoon.