During the 1934–35 English football season, Gillingham F.C. competed in the Football League Third Division South, the third tier of the English football league system. It was the 15th season in which Gillingham competed in the Football League. Gillingham won two of their first four games of the season but then won only once in the next eleven league games; they were in 18th place out of 22 teams in the league table at the end of November. During a match on 1 December, Gillingham's Sim Raleigh suffered a head injury and died later that day. The team ended 1934 with five consecutive defeats during which they conceded 24 goals. After only winning 4 out of 22 games between August and December, Gillingham performed better in the second half of the campaign, with 7 victories in 20 games between January and May. An unbeaten run of seven games during March and April helped ensure that they finished the season in 20th place, avoiding by one place the need to apply for re-election to the league for the following season.
Gillingham competed in two knock-out competitions but were eliminated in the first round of both the FA Cup and the Third Division South Cup. The team played 44 competitive matches, winning 11, drawing 13 and losing 20. Bill Baldwin was the club's top goalscorer with 13 goals, all scored in the league. Fred Lester made the most appearances, playing in all 44 games. The highest attendance recorded at the club's home ground, Priestfield Road, during the season was 9,233 for a league match against Coventry City on 26 December 1934.
Background and pre-season
The 1934–35 season was Gillingham's 15th season playing in the third and lowest level of the Football League. The club had been among the founder members of the Football League Third Division in 1920, which featured only southern teams and was renamed the Third Division South a year later when a parallel Third Division North was created. In Gillingham's 14 seasons in this division, the team had consistently struggled, only finishing in the top half of the league table twice. They had finished in the bottom two places on four occasions, requiring them each time to apply for re-election to the League, most recently in the 1931–32 season. In the 1933–34 season they had finished in 17th place out of 22 teams.
Fred Mavin was the team's manager, a post he had held since 1932. Alan Ure served as team trainer. There was some turnover in the club's playing squad; Arthur Mills and Allan Scott, two of Gillingham's highest goalscorers during the previous season, both moved on, as did another forward, Fred Liddle. In their place, the club signed four new forwards: Wilf Crompton from Burnley, Bill Baldwin from Southport, Albert Orr from Torquay United, and Dick Doncaster from Reading. Joe Wiggins, a full-back, joined the club from Leicester City, and Harry Randle, a half-back, arrived from Southend United.
The team's first-choice kit was Gillingham's usual blue shirts and white shorts. Pre-season matches between Football League members were not permitted at the time, and clubs instead generally prepared for the season with a public trial match between two teams chosen from within their own squad of players. Gillingham staged such a match in August and Doncaster and Orr were among the scorers as the "Blues" beat the "Reds".
Third Division South August–December
Gillingham's first match of the season was at their own ground, Priestfield Road, against Torquay United; Wiggins, Crompton, Baldwin, Orr, and Doncaster all made their debuts for Gillingham. Sim Raleigh, Gillingham's highest goalscorer during the previous season, scored all the goals in a 3–0 victory; it was the only hat-trick scored by a Gillingham player during the season. Four days later, Randle made his debut against Millwall; Gillingham were hindered by playing into the wind and sun in the first half, and the glare contributed to George Barrie scoring an own goal as Millwall took a 2–0 lead before half-time and went on to win 3–1. Gillingham's first away game of the season resulted in a second consecutive defeat as they were beaten 3–0 by Reading. On 8 September, Crompton scored two goals as Gillingham beat Northampton Town 3–1 at Priestfield Road; it was the start of a run of seven games in which he scored a total of six goals. A week after the victory over Northampton, he scored to secure a 1–1 draw after Gillingham had fallen behind to Bournemouth & Boscombe Athletic, and he was on the scoresheet again on 17 September when Gillingham lost 3–2 away to Millwall. Despite creating the majority of the scoring chances, Gillingham lost 2–1 at home to Watford on 22 September; in the closing minutes Gillingham could have been awarded a penalty kick when one of Watford's full-backs cleared the ball from the goal line with his hand, but the referee failed to notice the infringement. A 2–2 draw with Newport County on 29 September, in which Crompton scored again, meant that Gillingham were in 16th place out of 22 teams in the Third Division South league table at the end of the month.
Gillingham ended a four-game winless run by beating Exeter City on 6 October; Barrie scored the first goal and provided the final pass for Raleigh to score the other. A week later, Crompton gave his team the lead over Bristol City in the first minute, but Gillingham conceded three goals in the second half and lost the game. Following a goalless draw at home to Queens Park Rangers in what the Daily Herald described as a "game of missed chances", Gillingham lost 2–0 away to Crystal Palace. In the team's first game of November, a goal from Raleigh secured a 1–1 draw at home to Aldershot. On 10 November, Gillingham lost 3–0 away to Swindon Town, meaning that they had scored only one goal in their last four matches. The match was the final Gillingham appearance for Crompton, the team's joint top scorer for the season up to this point; later in the month he was transferred to Luton Town after just 14 appearances for Gillingham. Doncaster, who had not played since September, replaced him for the next game, against Southend United, and scored his team's first goal in a 2–2 draw; Fred Cheesmur, a former Gillingham player, scored both of Southend's goals. At the end of the month, Gillingham were in 19th place in the league table.
On 1 December, Gillingham played at home to Brighton & Hove Albion in a match which finished 0–0. Early in the game, Raleigh and a Brighton player clashed heads while both jumping for the ball. Raleigh played on but collapsed during the second half; he was taken to a nearby hospital but died during the evening. An inquest took place shortly afterwards which attributed the death to a haemorrhage and recorded a verdict of accidental death. A week after Raleigh's death, Gillingham beat Cardiff City 2–0 to achieve their first victory for more than two months, but they then ended 1934 with five consecutive defeats, in which they conceded a total of 24 goals. The run began on 15 December with a 6–3 defeat at home to Charlton Athletic, who were top of the league table going into the game; it was the first time Gillingham had conceded as many goals in a match since the previous December. Against Bristol Rovers on 22 December, Gillingham fell 3–1 behind but scoring twice to bring the scores level; they conceded a fourth goal and lost the game. Gillingham played Coventry City on both 25 and 26 December; at the time it was traditional for teams in the Football League to play home and away matches against the same opponents on the two days. On Christmas Day, Gillingham were beaten 4–0 at Coventry's Highfield Road ground; the Birmingham Gazette reported that Gillingham had James Harvey, their goalkeeper, to thank for the fact that they were not defeated by a wider margin. The teams met again at Priestfield Road on Boxing Day and Coventry scored three early goals and eventually won 5–2. Gillingham's final match of 1934 ended in a 5–0 defeat to Torquay United; the result meant that at the end of the calendar year Gillingham were in 20th place in the league table.
January–May
Gillingham ended their run of defeats in their first game of 1935 with a 1–1 draw at home to Reading, but followed this with a 2–1 defeat away to Northampton Town two weeks later. The match was the first of a run in which Gillingham alternated between away defeats and home victories over ten games. In their final game of January, Gillingham won a match at Priestfield Road for the first time in nearly four months, beating Bournemouth & Boscombe Athletic 3–1. Hugh Vallance, who had left the club in 1932, scored the opening goal in his first appearance after re-joining Gillingham days earlier. Roy Bethell and Doncaster added to Gillingham's lead before their opponents scored a late consolation goal. In their first match of February, Gillingham lost 3–1 away to Watford, a result which took Watford up to 2nd place in the league table but meant that Gillingham were now in the bottom two places. Gillingham rebounded in their next game, achieving their highest-scoring victory of the season when they beat fellow strugglers Newport County 5–0 at Priestfield Road. The game was goalless at half-time but, in what the Western Mail called an "extraordinary reversal", Gillingham's forwards dominated the game in the second period, scoring twice within five minutes of the restart and adding three further goals before the end of the match. Doncaster scored one goal and set up three more. A week later, Gillingham lost 2–0 away to Exeter City, but they ended February with a 1–0 home victory over Bristol City.
The team's contrasting performances at home and away continued in early March. In the first match of the month, they lost 2–0 away to Queens Park Rangers, but a week later they beat Crystal Palace by the same score at Priestfield Road; Doncaster scored a goal direct from a corner kick, assisted by a strong wind, and Baldwin added a second late in the game to complete the victory. On 16 March, Gillingham suffered their heaviest defeat since December as they lost 4–1 away to Aldershot. After the home team took the lead, Doncaster scored an equaliser almost immediately, but Aldershot scored twice more before half-time. The Daily Herald reported that Gillingham "showed great dash" in the second period, but their opponents' defence was too strong for them and Aldershot added a fourth goal late in the game. Having previously failed to go more than three consecutive games without defeat at any point since the start of the season, Gillingham began an unbeaten run of seven games with a 2–0 victory at home to Swindon Town on 23 March, which they followed with four consecutive draws. In their final match of March, they held Southend United to a goalless draw, the first time since before Christmas that they had played an away game and not been defeated.