Gillingham Football Club is a professional association football club based in the town of Gillingham, Kent, England. The club's first team plays home matches at Priestfield Stadium and competes in League Two, the fourth tier of the English football league system, in the 2025–26 season.
The club was founded in 1893 as New Brompton Football Club and renamed to Gillingham Football Club in 1912. Gillingham's first team played in the Southern League before joining the Football League in 1920. After 18 unsuccessful seasons, they were voted out of the league in favour of Ipswich Town at the end of the 1937–38 season, and returned to the Southern League. Gillingham returned to the Football League in 1950, when the competition was expanded from 88 to 92 clubs. Twice in the late 1980s, Gillingham came close to winning promotion to the second tier of English football, but a decline then set in and in 1993, they narrowly avoided relegation to the Football Conference. Between 2000 and 2005, Gillingham played in the second tier of the English football league system for the only time in the club's history, achieving a highest league finish of eleventh place in 2002–03. The club has twice won the championship of English football's fourth tier, in the 1963–64 and 2012–13 seasons, under managers Freddie Cox and Martin Allen respectively.
Gillingham originally played in black and white striped shirts but switched to blue shirts in the 1930s. The club crest has traditionally depicted the white horse symbol of the county of Kent. Priestfield Stadium has been the club's home ground throughout its existence; it once held up to 30,000 fans but in the modern era the capacity is less than half that figure.
History
Early years
The local success of a junior football side, Chatham Excelsior F.C., encouraged a group of businessmen to meet with a view to creating a football club that could compete in larger competitions. New Brompton F.C. was formed at the meeting, held on 18 May 1893, New Brompton being a settlement adjacent to Gillingham. The founders also purchased the plot of land that later became Priestfield Stadium. The new club played its first match on 2 September 1893, losing 5–1 to Woolwich Arsenal's reserve side in front of a crowd of 2,000. New Brompton were among the founder members of the Southern League upon its creation in 1894, and were placed in Division Two. They were named Champions in the first season (1894–95) going on to defeat Swindon Town in a test match to win promotion.
In the seasons that followed, the club struggled in Division One, finishing bottom in the 1907–08 season,[2] avoiding relegation only due to expansion of the league. Whilst the club's league performance was disappointing, the side did manage a famous cup victory over Football League First Division Sunderland and held Manchester City to a draw before losing in the replay.
Stadium
The Gills have played at Priestfield Stadium throughout their existence.[24] The ground was originally purchased by the founders of the club through an issue of 1,500 £1 shares. Sources differ on whether the ground was named after the road on which the land stood, Priestfield Road, or whether the road was named after the ground;[25] if the latter is the case then the origin of the ground's name is unknown. The ground was extensively developed prior to the 1930s, but there was then little change until the late 1990s and the arrival of Paul Scally as chairman. Three of the four stands were demolished and rebuilt between 1995 and 2000. The fourth stand, known as the Town End, was demolished to make way for a new stand, to be named the Brian Moore Stand after television sports commentator Brian Moore, who was a well-known Gills fan, but the club's financial situation has not allowed the new stand to be built. A temporary stand was erected in 2003 and remains in place as of 2024.[26][27] From 2007 until 2010 the stadium was officially named KRBS Priestfield Stadium as part of a sponsorship deal with the Kent Reliance Building Society. In 2011 it was rebranded again, this time, to MEMS Priestfield Stadium under another such agreement.
Colours and crest
Although Gillingham have long been associated with the colours blue and white, the original New Brompton side wore a strip consisting of black and white striped shirts with black shorts. In 1913 the black and white strip was dropped in favour of red shirts with blue sleeves, emblazoned with the borough's coat of arms. The striped shirts returned after World War One, before finally being replaced with the now-familiar combination of plain blue shirts and white shorts in 1931. More recent years have seen several variations on the blue and white colour scheme. In the late 1990s the team wore blue and black striped shirts, recalling the original New Brompton stripes.[33]
In the summer of 2003 it was controversially announced that the club's first choice shirts for the following season would be predominantly white, rather than blue. The announcement received such a hostile response from supporters that the white strip was replaced by one featuring blue and black hoops, which had originally been earmarked as the team's third choice kit.[34] In March 2010 the club announced a return to the black and blue stripes for the 2010–11 season.[35] In recognition of the centenary of the renaming of the club, the 2012–13 kit was red with blue sleeves and collar, and the club's crest was replaced by the town's crest. After winning the League Two title in 2012–13, the club gave season ticket holders the chance to vote on what colours the club would play in for the 2013–14 season, with the fans choosing to return to a blue and white kit.
Players
Club officials
As of 3 March 2026[86]
Management
Technical staff
Managers
For the first three years of the club's existence, team matters were handled by a committee. In 1897, William Ironside Groombridge, the club's secretary, took sole charge of team affairs to become Gillingham's first recognised manager. Former England international Stephen Smith was appointed as full-time manager in 1906,[87] but left in 1908, with Groombridge once again taking on team responsibilities. Groombridge was associated with the club, as manager and secretary, for over 25 years. When the club was admitted to the Football League in 1920, Robert Brown was appointed as manager, but he resigned a month later before the season had even begun. His replacement, Scotsman John McMillan, thus became the first manager to take charge of the team in a Football League match.
In 1939, a year after the club was voted back out of the Football League, Archie Clark took over as manager, and was still in charge when the club was elected back to the Football League in 1950. Clark remained in the job until 1957. Freddie Cox took over in 1962 and led the club to the Football League Fourth Division championship in the 1963–64 season, making him the first manager to win a Football League divisional title with the club. Basil Hayward was sacked in 1971 after the club was relegated back to the Fourth Division in the 1970–71 season, but his successor Andy Nelson led the club to promotion back to Division Three three years later before controversially resigning.
Honours
League
Cup
- Second Division (level 3)
- Play-off winners: 2000
- Fourth Division / Third Division / League Two (level 4)
- Champions: 1963–64, 2012–13
- Runners-up: 1973–74, 1995–96
- Play-off winners: 2009
- Southern League
- Champions: 1946–47, 1948–49
Statistics and records
Goalkeeper Ron Hillyard holds the record for Gillingham appearances, having played 657 matches in all competitions between 1974 and 1990, while the record for appearances solely in the Football League is held by another goalkeeper, John Simpson, with 571 between 1957 and 1972. Brian Yeo is the club's all-time leading league goalscorer, having scored a total of 136 goals between 1963 and 1975. He also jointly holds the club record for the most Football League goals scored in a single season, having scored 31 goals in the 1973–74 season, equalling the record set by Ernie Morgan in 1954–55. The highest number of goals scored by a player in a single game at a professional level is the six registered by Fred Cheesmur against Merthyr Town in April 1930. The highest transfer fee received by the club is £1.5 million for Robert Taylor, paid by Manchester City in 1999, and the highest fee paid by Gillingham is £600,000 for Carl Asaba, signed from Reading in 1998.
The club's record home attendance is 23,002, for an FA Cup match against Queens Park Rangers on 10 January 1948,[90] a record which will almost certainly never be broken unless the club relocates to a larger ground, given that Priestfield Stadium's current capacity is approximately half that figure. The team's biggest ever professional win was a 10–0 defeat of
Rivalries
The 2003 Football Fans Census revealed that no other team's supporters considered Gillingham to be among their club's main rivals.[91] Millwall are considered to be the closest the Gills have to local rivals.[92] Swindon Town are seen by many fans as the club's biggest rivals, stemming from bad-tempered matches between the teams in the past.[93] While Swindon fans generally do not consider Gillingham among their biggest rivals, there was violence when they met at Priestfield in the 2005–06 season, their first meeting since a promotion play-off match in 1987.[94] Following their promotion in 1989, Maidstone United became Kent's second League side. A rivalry with Gillingham developed over the following seasons, until Maidstone's financial troubles forced them to resign from the League in 1992.[95]
In popular culture
In 1956, comedian Fred Emney filmed a scene for his sitcom Emney Enterprises prior to the start of a match between Gillingham and Brighton & Hove Albion. The footage featured the overweight Emney, wearing a flat cap and monocle and smoking a cigar, dribbling the ball past the entire Gills defence and scoring a goal. The 2005 film Green Street makes use of action sequences filmed during a match between Gillingham and West Ham United, although the dialogue states that the team playing West Ham is Birmingham City to align with the narrative of the film. A film entitled The Shouting Men, released in March 2010, centres on a group of Gillingham fans and features scenes shot at Priestfield.[38]
See also
- Brian Moore's Head Looks Uncannily Like London Planetarium – fanzine devoted to the club, which existed from 1988 to 2006 in physical form and later had a short run as a webzine. Named in honour of the football commentator Brian Moore, a Gillingham supporter and former member of the board of directors.
- Chatham Town WFC – women's football club formerly affiliated to Gillingham F.C.
External links
References
- Gillingham English Football League, retrieved 3 October 2021^
- Gillingham The Football Club History Database, retrieved 3 October 2021^
- Gillingham FC History (1893– ) Gillingham F.C., retrieved 4 February 2014^