A Club Statment on Gillingham's failure to hold a minute's silence
It has come to light that some supporters still misunderstand the reasons why the minute’s silence did not take place before our fixture with Brackley Town at MEMS Priestfield Stadium on Saturday 9 November.As has been the case in every season since the Chairman first came to the Club, the minute’s silence was planned and was part of our pre-match schedule. However in an unfortunate miscommunication between club matchday management, the referee and the matchday announcer, the minute’s silence was not observed.
The Chairman was as shocked and disappointed by this oversight as anyone associated with the Football Club. He places huge importance on supporting our past and present servicemen and is a keen supporter of the Help For Heroes charity, and regularly attends their fundraising events. In actual fact he attended the Cenotaph on Sunday 10 November to pay his personal respects.
Consequently he was most disappointed at the manner in which the matter was covered in the local media on the Monday morning, but understands that, given supporters were unaware of events on the Saturday, they would have been as disappointed.
We would like to stress that there was never any decision taken not to hold a minute’s silence, nor would there have been any reason to take such a decision, it would have been illogical. Sadly by the time it was realised that the referee was not going to hold the minute’s silence it was too late to rectify the situation. For those supporters that have been offended by this unfortunate situation the Chairman unreservedly apologises on his own behalf, and on behalf of everyone associated with the Club.