A free drink and the chance to talk Town

[Reg Smeeton]

Maybe not to Gills Reg...but for Swindon there is.......i remember watching Fjortoft at Wembley v England(finished 0-0)..Swindon took two coachloads of fans....we happened to be sitting in front of about 20 Gillingham fans and it turned very nasty.. two Oxford fans couldnt believe the rivalry and madea swift exit.......there is a rivalry in my view.

 The stats though just don't back up your claim.....take the last time the Gills visited < a couple of years back...nice early season Saturday afternoon..first time we'd played these opponents on a Sat for 20 odd years, now if there was a rivalry, then I think it fair to expect a decent crowd.  However there were only 6 lower crowds that season...either mid week fixtures or extreme norvern monkeys like Carlisle and HPool.

In fact the likes of Crewe Tranny and Donny were bigger attractions.

The reality is most Town fans regard Gillingham as a rather no mark opposition noted, if for anything, then rather dour, dull sides and a handful of pikey fans. 

[Power to people]

Dont you even dare call me sensible !!!


Anyway................. I love taking free drinks off of 442 for sprouting some shit !

I beleive Nick said it was for the programme...so you'd be taking drinks of STFC Fred 

[juddie]

I see what you're sayign Reg, but I went to Priestfield a while back and their fans who weren't wearing 'we hate Swindon' were in the minority. They might not travel in numbers, but that doesn't diminish their hatred.

[Reg Smeeton]

I see what you're sayign Reg, but I went to Priestfield a while back and their fans who weren't wearing 'we hate Swindon' were in the minority. They might not travel in numbers, but that doesn't diminish their hatred.

Don't make the very elementary error of confusing hatred for rivalry...for example Leeds are generally despised. One of my happiest STFC supporting moments was when Ross MacLaren buried one from the edge of the box for a 3-2 win at teh CG, but they aren't rivals, other than being in the same div.

[juddie]

true, but then I would argue hatred has become rivalry. Many people hate Gillingham because they think they should, but don;t know why.  It still makes for an interesting atmosphere when we play them, so in my mind that makes them rivals.

[Reg Smeeton]

true, but then I would argue hatred has become rivalry. Many people hate Gillingham because they think they should, but don;t know why.  It still makes for an interesting atmosphere when we play them, so in my mind that makes them rivals.

I don't think I've ever met a Town fan who hates Gillingham....apart from the odd intellectually challenged type, but if you want to go along with that mindset it's entirely your business. Good luck with it.

[Spy]

I see what you're sayign Reg, but I went to Priestfield a while back and their fans who weren't wearing 'we hate Swindon' were in the minority. They might not travel in numbers, but that doesn't diminish their hatred.

Exactly. I can see both sides of this. I was very surprised with how few fans came to the CG but on the other hand, they did have the police helicopter out and there must have been only 100 or less Gills fans.

Maybe thats it... that there is a hooligan element to it but in terms of how your average swindon fan feels towards Gillingham there isn't very strong feeling aganst them. But for them, we are a big rival (as I think was proved in that rivals survey).

Imo it makes for a good atmosphere and I look forward to all that on August the 8th. 

[axs]

I see what you're sayign Reg, but I went to Priestfield a while back and their fans who weren't wearing 'we hate Swindon' were in the minority. They might not travel in numbers, but that doesn't diminish their hatred.

ahhh, sweet.

[juddie]

A friend of mine used to know some naughty lads who used to hate Gillingham, but they're not really matchgoers nowadays. But I think the fact that people on here call them pikeys/scum reinforces the point that there's is some ambivalence towards them, Reg.

The fact is, there is history with them, and so surely that creates some kind of rivalry?

[Reg Smeeton]

A friend of mine used to know some naughty lads who used to hate Gillingham, but they're not really matchgoers nowadays. But I think the fact that people on here call them pikeys/scum reinforces the point that there's is some ambivalence towards them, Reg.

The fact is, there is history with them, and so surely that creates some kind of rivalry?

 5 season's worth in the last 30 years...the first PO, which The Pikeys only reached courtesy of our desire to prevent a rival, Shitty reaching them.

 Some Tranny fans don't like us very much for what happened in the PO's and the floodlight game, but I don't think they'd call us rivals. In the same way some of our lot don't like the Gayers very much, but wouldn't call them rivals.

[Batch]

Talking of rivals, this 2003 study is interesting. Ish.

http://www.footballfanscensus.com/issueresults/Club_Rivalries_Uncovered_Results.pdf

2003 - Gills named us as their second rivals behind Milwall.  Then again, Reading named us as their
main Rivals.

Times change. And I suggest 90% of our fan base, myself included, don't really give a stuff about the Gills.

[alanmayes]

They were only our rivals back in 79 and 87 in the sense that we were both going for promotion/
the play offs.They have a bitter view of us because of what has been passed down from father
to son etc.Do you hear any of us going on about the 79 game at the CG, with their antics on the
field and then in the tunnel? Very rarely and only sometimes to enlighten some fans about what
really happened.

We've all moved on,but if they want to trapped in a time warp then that's their problem not ours.
I was at all of the games  and whilst i remember them,i don't dwell on them at all.

I've always had the feeling that Gillingham are desperate for some sort of rivals as they're a bit
isolated and in geographical terms,Millwall and Southend would suffice.There are always teams
that we dislike for various reasons,but it doesn't provide any "rivalry" as such.

[pauld]

I used to work with a bloke from Sittingbourne. Although personally he was mainly a "Brickies" fan, he had a load of Gills-supporting mates so he'd occasionally meet up with them when they played nearish to Swindon. Went with him a couple of times to watch Gillingham at Reading and had the utterly bizarre experience of 10,000+ fans (ie both home and away) singing about how much they hated Swindon.

My mate's mates all knew I was a Town fan and they were pissing themselves, until I told them we didn't really give a fuck about them, and then they got proper upset and started insisting that we did. Interestingly, none of them knew what it was all about ("Oooh, before my time, we've hated you lot as long as I can remember etc"), like some kind of Albanian feud going back centuries.

Classic case of two teams with no proper rivals desperately trying to invent one.

[Summer of Noughtie Nine]

Free drink? Yeah right! What do they really want in return?

[Bogus Dave]

Your soul