Football

Gillingham Town v Old Roan

Kent F.A. Junior ‘A’ Cup

3rd Round

Saturday 17th January 2026

Kick Off 13.30 Actual 13.29

Gillingham Town 1 Old Roan 3, attendance 8

6’ 0-1

29’ 0-2

74’ 0-3

77’ 1-3

@ Chatham Garrison Sports Ground

Sally Port Gardens

Brompton

ME7 5BT

No Admission or Programme.

Today’s game was a county cup tie between two teams from the Kent County League, with 8th in Division 2 East hosting 3rd in Division 2 West, Old Roan having won all eight league games they’ve played so far. The adverse weather had seen this game postponed last week, but no such problems today and I had an immediate response from the home club confirming this. Chatham Garrison Sports Ground is in Brompton, roughly halfway between Chatham and Gillingham and has a couple of grass pitches, a rugby pitch (that runs across today’s pitch) and a 3G hockey pitch. There’s a small car park and brick built changing room building, with the football to the left looking from here, with the near goal butting up to the caged pitch. It’s roped along about a third of the far touchline, whilst the two ‘dugouts’ were set up opposite.

Old Roan took an early lead, catching out the home defence with a quickly taken free kick, enabling the striker to finish one on one against the ‘keeper. They doubled their lead just before the half hour mark, with a 30 yarder into the top corner, which the ‘keeper got a hand to, but couldn’t keep out. We had a break of about five minutes around the hour mark, when soil had to be fetched from around the perimeter fence, to fill a hole in the pitch that was a good six inches deep. Apparently it had been there all game, but no one had gone near enough for it to have been a problem until then. The visitors made it 0-3 with sixteen minutes left, sweeping in a rebound at the far post, after an initial shot was saved, before Gillingham pulled one back three minutes later, breaking quickly down the left, before cutting inside where the first shot was saved, but followed in from twelve yards. They also had a shot cleared off the line late on, but never looked like getting level.