League Two Gillingham FC recorded one of their most incredible wins last night, as they beat Premier league Brentford in the EFL Cup 3rd Round.
Brentford’s Ivan Toney’s early goal put the Bees ahead but Gillingham hit back through a 73rd-minute header from substitute Mikael Mandron.
The Gills then stunned their top-flight hosts with a 6-5 win on penalties after the 1-1 draw. The game was decided when Brentford’s Danish International midfielder Mikkel Damsgaard smashed his penalty against the crossbar to send the team from Kent through.
Gills boss Neil Harris said the night was made even more incredible after the efforts the team had to endure to get to the game, which meant kick-off was delayed by 20 minutes. This was caused by protests on the M25, which meant the club’s pre-match plans were thrown into chaos as the team bus got stuck a quarter of a mile from the ground.
We couldn’t move the coach so we decided to get out and walk
He said ‘We had to walk here, we had to climb over barriers and help each other get over fences. We got to about a quarter of a mile from Chiswick Roundabout and we got stuck. Fortunately we had a tactics board on the bus’.
He continued ‘But we couldn’t move and they couldn’t get a police escort to us. So we got in touch with the officials and decided to walk – probably about a 10-minute walk. And we had to leave two hours early this morning because of protestors. It’s been a bit of a carnage day. It’s a memorable night because of the performance, but also because of the factors surrounding it’.
Brentford boss Thomas Frank picked a strong team including England World Cup hopeful Toney, as they hoped to match their good cup run last season, as they got to the quarter finals.
Frank said ‘First of all congratulations to Gillingham, it’s well done by them’.
