This is a small piece to explain why on Sunday afternoon, between 3pm and 5pm, my Twitter feed will be a mix of football, cursing, drinking, swearing and classic rock.

It’s that time of the year again! The last game of the football season, and my team (Gillingham) are in very real danger of being relegated from their current league (League 1) to the league below (League 2). At the moment we’re in 20^th place – finishing 21^st or below means we spend next season in a lesser league with lower quality, smaller attendances and less money from both league position and people watching. It’s not good.

Here’s the table as it stands:

As it’s three points for a win, and one for a draw, the only team below us who can overtake are Port Vale. Here’s how it could go.

If Gillingham win: it doesn’t matter what happens elsewhere, we finish the season on 52 points and we stay up. There’s a party at the game, much is drunk in celebration.

If Gillingham draw: we finish on 50 points. We stay up IF Port Vale don’t win (i.e. they draw or lose). Even if they do win, if Bury lose heavily then they get relegated instead. Not an ideal situation as our fate is in the hands of others.

If Gillingham lose: we stay on 49 points. If Port Vale also lose, we stay up, drink, be merry, have fun. If Port Vale draw then we also stay up, unless we lose by a difference of seven goals or more (a slim possibility, odds on Bet365 are currently 1680/1 on such an event) in which case we finish on the same points and get relegated due to having an inferior goal difference (Goals Scored over the season minus Goals Conceded over the season). If Port Vale win, we’re down.

So, all things considered, the best outcome is if Gillingham go for a win, so we have our fate in our own hands. But how likely is this? Well, in our last game (at home, to Fleetwood - remember that name) we took the lead twice, before contriving to lose 3-2. Our match before that we lost 3-0 away at local rivals Charlton, a game I went to but the team didn’t really turn up at. Before that we won at home to Bristol Rovers, a team at the top end of the table, with two late goals that were rather lucky. Form is not on our side.

But what about the team we’re playing? We’re away at Northampton. They’re a few places above us, safe from relegation and ideally already thinking about their holidays, so in theory shouldn’t be that motivated. However it’s the last home game of the season so they’ll want to send their fans off happily with a win. Not only that, their manager (Justin Edinburgh) used to manage Gillingham until halfway through this season when he was fired – rumours are that the players turned against him and stopped putting in any effort (although that malaise has been in the squad since January 2016 so honestly, how would we know?) and as it’s always nice to get one over your ex, there may be added motivation there.

Port Vale are playing Fleetwood, who have promotion to play for (and beat us on Saturday as well) so a Vale win is by no means guaranteed, although they won at Walsall on Tuesday night. 

You may be feeling a small sense of deja vu. Haven't you read about Gillingham trying to escape relegation on this very blog, seven or so years ago? You'd be right. Things didn't go our way that time, and because of this I'm shouting down the urges to spend my day travelling to the Midlands to cheer on my team. Instead I'll be sitting on the couch as my wife plays Stardew Valley, listening to radio commentary and refreshing Twitter while drinking in celebration or dismay. Come join me! It'll be fun.

My Day at Wembley by James Tong (aged 24 and 3/4)

Well, that was fun.

The day started ridiculously early at 8:03am, when I woke up to Dave Lee Roth's "Just Like Paradise" on the radio. Unsure as to whether this was portentious or grimly ironic, I got myself ready, and we made our way to the station. We stopped off at Macknade service station for a bar of Galaxy Cookie Crunch - a superstition from earlier in the season, I'd gotten one before the games against Bury, Dagenham & Redbridge and Rochdale, and we hadn't lost those games (winning two and drawing one) and I'm a superstitious bastard.

We got to the station in time for the train half an hour before the one we intended to get, and as Phil had made that one from Canterbury as well we got in early, bagging a seat with a table. At Faversham the train was pretty full - by Sittingbourne, an hour away from London, every seat was taken and there were even people sitting in the aisles. At Rainham there were people three deep at the platform edge - not a hope in hell of getting everyone in. It got worse further up the line. A group of 13/14 year old lads got on with us at Faversham and were being somewhat boisterous, until surrounded by Gills fans at which point they were rather quiet.

We got into Victoria and the train spewed out wave after wave of blue, yellow and white clad Gills fans. As we made our way round to the cashpoints we could hear the chants from the Wetherspoons echoing round the concourse - even in the toilets deep underground I could tell which chant it was. We got on an extremely rammed Victoria line train and then changed to go to Baker Street, where we went in search of food and alcohol. We took a picture outside Brian Moore's Head the London Planetarium (leave me be) and found a KFC to scoff. Sitting in the KFC 100+ yards from the pub on the corner opposite Baker Street station we could hear Gills chants down the street! Seeing people walking past with alcohol I remembered a Tesco down the road and we headed there just after midday so I could get myself a cider to drink on the tube. Unfortunately, due to the actions of some drunk Cambridge fans the previous weekend, Baker Street was completely dry between the hours of 12 and 3. Arse.

We got down to the platform just as an Uxbridge train pulled in and we jumped on, with around 20 other Gills fans standing in our carriage which became so hot sweat was dripping down the inside of the doors. At Wembley Park we found Coca-Cola fan people who were giving out wristbands - one poor sod made the mistake of pronouncing our club's name as Gillingham with a hard G and got booed by half a dozen Gills fans in a light hearted way. We walked up Wembley Way surrounded by fans in blue and white, and blue and yellow. The new Wembley looks a lot nicer than the old dump, and took pictures like the tourists we are - including the Gills flags in front of the Bobby Moore statue. Walking round the concourse we saw a mounted policeman on a white horse - by this time I was getting rather hyper and got excited about a white horse at Wembley.

When we got into the stadium itself I was rather taken by the resemblence to Tropicana Field in Tampa, where the Rays play their home baseball games, but when we walked through the barrier into the stand I was very impressed. We sat chilling and soaking up the atmosphere, before the under 11s cup final took place in the centre of the pitch. The 6000 odd fans in the stadium took it to heart and were cheering on both sides, with the blue team scoring in the last minute from a left sided corner. Hmm. After that we were impressed that Doug Hudson, the normal announcer at Priestfield, read out our lineup and then lead the 38,000+ Gills fans in a singalong of The Last Waltz. I wasted £3.80 on a pint of Carlsberg (Carlsberg evidently don't do beer, either) before watching the team warm up and alternating between excited and nervous.

The teams came out to an amazing atmosphere. The Gills had the better of the first half against a clearly nervous Shrewsbury, with a corner swept in by Nutter and pushed over the bar by their keeper, and a Josh Wright shot pushed round the post. The first half swept past very quickly, and the teams went in at half time with the Shrews lucky to be level. The half time break took its time to pass, and we discussed the fact that the Gills would be attacking the goal in front of us in the second half. We started the second half as we finished the first, pressuring the Shrewsbury defence but being hindered by the fact that their keeper is a bit good. Then, something changed. Suddenly the Gills became unable to string more than two passes together and Shrewsbury started pressing. The second half dragged on and on, with both teams tiring and gradually slowing down. Dennis Oli, who had turned their left back in and out so much the guy had twisted blood, was visibly knackered towards the end.

Then, suddenly, Barcham broke down the left, speeding past the defender and slicing his cross behind the goal, as the defender slid in. The ref gave a corner, which we weren't too displeased about, as 89:50 showed on the clock. As the ball was returned I noticed that we'd left three defenders and the goalkeeper back in case of a breakaway. Nutter swung the ball in, it was flicked on by Weston and Jackson headed goalwards towards the defender on the line. The defender headed it onto the post and behind him into the roof of the net - the keeper scrambled it away but the linesman had spotted the goal (as did we) and the south stand with the Gills in went absolutely mental. 49 games over the season, and it had come down to the last second of the last minute of the last game. The two minutes of injury time took approximately an hour to tick down, and as their keeper hoofed it forward, the referee blew his whistle and we were back up to League 1, a year after we left it!

After the trophy was lifted we left sharpish, and caught the tube back to Victoria in time to get the 18:03 train home. After running for food and for the train I was absolutely knackered, and stood on the train swaying and seeing blue sheep scampering in the fields. The food perked me up and kept me going until Faversham where, 10 hours after we arrived there, we returned tired and happy.

Why I'll Be In A Bad Mood After 2:30pm Today

I'm a Gillingham fan.

(And yes, it does feel like I've stood up at a meeting for Pillocks Anonymous and admitted my reason for being there.)

I have been for a good ten years, and if you'll cast your eye up to your address bar and note the first part of the URL you'll see my normal username. It's a contraction of "James The Gillingham Fan" caused by a limited amount of space on the Harry message board back in 2003. I regularly check the scores if the matches are in progress; at work on a Saturday I've had the BBC vidiprinter up to update me with the text commentary. Many a time I've had to put a customer on hold briefly in order to shout with joy/swear at the screen.

This season it's mostly been the latter. We're on our third manager this year. He's bought in a fair few players from non-league; some of whom have been successful, most of whom haven't. He's replaced the dross left under the old regime with cheaper, more enthusiastic dross. They've tried hard, bless 'em, but with two games to go we still find ourselves 3 points behind safety, sat currently in a position which, if we stay here, will see us playing in a lower league next year.

(A quick aside - it's three points if you win a game, one point if you draw, and nothing for a loss - but you knew that already.)

Quite simply in today's game a win is vital. Lose and we're screwed - even a draw for Cheltenham later today will see us down. A draw will postpone the misery for another week but as our final game is against Leeds, a side who would have won the league were it not for a points deduction at the start of the season, I can't see us getting anything from it. It's our last home game of the season today, and it's kicking off at 12:30pm on the advice of the local police, as the visitors are our old chums from Swindon.

In the late 1970s the Gillingham side was actually rather good. In the same league as they are now, but gunning for promotion to the next league above, a place Gillingham had never gone (and won't do until 2000, when Andy Thomson scored a neat diving header at Wembley three minutes from time to win the playoff final) but a place we'd quite like to go to. Enter Swindon. A report of the home game that year written from a Gills perspective can be found here; similarly the away game report is here. It left a bad taste in the mouth of Gills fans and Swindon are regularly referred to in none too kind words on the Gillingham message board.

We played them again in the late 1980s, with much the same result - them denying us promotion to the promised land. After that we went our separate ways; they always seemed to be a league or two above us, and when we finally achieved promotion in 2000 to what is now the Championship, it was that year that they dropped out of that league, passing us on the way up. (The game at Wembley was won in part by two players we'd bought from Swindon on January 1st that year - oh, we did chortle). Sadly our run in the Championship didn't last, and the start of the 2005/2006 season we found ourselves in this league, in the same league as Swindon for the first time in nearly 20 years. In the run up to the January 14th home game there was much posturing from the keyboard warriors on various message boards - neanderthalic old men looking to prove they still had it by harking back to the "glory days" of hooliganism. Sensibly myself and my Dad were sat in the Town End, near the away support - to give them their due, the knuckle dragging portion of the Swindon fans (and it was by no means the majority) thought rightly against winding up the two bikers. The Gills won that game 3-0, and the yobs departed - off with their tails between their legs, we thought.

Not quite. To cut a blog post that is already getting out of hand short, there were pitched battles all down the roads from the ground to the station, with both groups of fans having yobs who knew nothing better joining in. Being perched on the back of a Suzuki Bandit while all this was going on around us was not my idea of a fun time - a swift escape down a footpath saw us leave this behind, but I was never more glad to have a crash helmet on than that night!

They went down that year, and so last season we were free of them - until they won promotion, and this year shared our league with us again. We played them early in the season at their place, losing 5-0 in a game that saw the end of Jepson's reign as manager. He's since been replaced by Iffy Onuora, who took Swindon down in 2006 and was a tad more successful here, but was only a caretaker and was replaced himself by Mark Stimson, the present incumbent who will be doing his utmost to get us a win today. Last Saturday we drew to a late goal away - Swindon, by contrast, hammered Port Vale 6-0. We need to win today in a game we're likely to lose. Doesn't bode well, does it?

If you want to follow the game, the BBC text commentary that I've been following all season is available here. Kickoff is at 12:30pm. I'd better get going really.