Gateshead delight fans in a 5-1 thrashing over Ebbsfleet to go top of the league on opening day of the 2024/25 National League season.
Rave reviews come in again for the Heed Army, starting where they left off, finished in the playoff places last season but were denied a playoff place by the EFL owing to their cash-strapped local council’s failure to guarantee them a formal 10-year lease at the International Stadium.
They then beat Solihull Moors to win the FA Trophy and had a brilliant spirited pre-season in recent months, with many fans and pundits tipping them for another high finish or even promotion.
They began the new league campaign with a victory, just have a watch at the highlights below…
5️⃣ goals
3️⃣ pointsSome opening day at the GIS! 🤩#WorClub ⚪️⚫️ pic.twitter.com/MnCwaMfsV6
— Gateshead FC (@GatesheadFC) August 10, 2024
💬 “Brilliant performance – just gutted about Grays.”
Rob talks through today’s opening day win 👇📺#WorClub ⚪️⚫️ pic.twitter.com/7EbLWmL5Nk
— Gateshead FC (@GatesheadFC) August 10, 2024
“It’s nice to score three – it’s not happened since I was about 8!” 😅
Greg looks back on an opening day win on our patch 👇📺#WorClub ⚪️⚫️ pic.twitter.com/mwJPtpstPD
— Gateshead FC (@GatesheadFC) August 10, 2024
Gateshead willing to go a bit more direct it seems 🤔
4th and 5th goals especially are really nice. Really well worked 👌
Have to say I’m surprised with how Ebbsfleet defended. Looked well organised at the back end of last season
Work to do for them https://t.co/rpO5rJFMSC
— tomhwilliams23 (@tomhwilliams23) August 11, 2024
EUFC: Cousins, O’Neill (Thomas 46), Page, Cordner (Phillips 60), John (Dallison 46), Wright (Fonguck 58), Kellermann, Chapman, Edser (Tanner 79), Samuel, Poleon.
Subs: Cundle, Berry
GFC: Brooks, Tinkler, Richardson, Grayson, Hannant, Newton (Adom 64), Booty, Whelan (McGowan 69), Butterfield (Worman 72), Olley (Beck 72), Oseni (Allan 64).
Subs: Moss, Storey
Attendance: 1,242 (79 EUFC)
Interviewer: Rob, a positive result and performance on the opening day in a five one win here. What’s your immediate reflection on that?
Rob: Yeah, brilliant result, brilliant performance. Obviously Just gutted about Grayson in terms of the injury at the end. So unfortunate, innocuous. And obviously he’s gone off to hospital. So I think, yeah, really put a damper on it in terms of the outcome because he’s worked so hard, he’s been incredible in terms of buying into what we were asking. He had to take so much responsibility in terms of the role he has to do for the team and then what he provides in terms of his quality. But, yeah, so not an ideal way to finish. Just need to make sure that everyone involved in the club and just make sure we support him so that when we’re back on the pitch, we’re in a better place than we are now for him to carry on from where he left off.
Interviewer: Yeah, I mean, you mentioned, obviously, Joe going off of the. The end there. Is it a bit too early to sort of. To say what the kind of issue is with him?
Rob: Obviously, you mentioned he’s gone from the ambulance, gone to hospital, so obviously having a more detailed look there. Yeah, he’s just gone. Obviously, Fraser and the medical team are brilliant today in terms of looking after him, but he’s going to go and get going, get an x ray, he’s probably got a fracture and hopefully the extent of it isn’t too bad and it’ll be the best case scenario, but we’ll see. But I think Joey’s probably going to have a little bit of time off off the pitch, but we just need to make sure we support him properly and get him back to the level he’s at because he’s been tremendous and, yeah, unfortunately these things happen in football, but no, we have to just make sure we use this to prepare ourselves and maintain the standards that Joe sets and how important he is for the group as well. Make sure that when he comes back in, he’s in a good place and getting back on the pitch as soon as we can.
Interviewer: In terms of the game itself, I mean, things seem to pretty much continue from where preseason left off, really. Greg mentioned towards the end of pre-season that confidence had been sky high and it very much seemed again the same from the boys today.
Rob: Yeah, I think the good thing for me is you’ve got to correlate into proper games and all the things we got confidence from, we implemented and you could argue we probably weren’t as good as we could have been in certain scenarios. Overall, I think our relentlessness to do the right thing and understand why we’re doing things and what the reasons are, whether It’s decisions to go over press, whether It’s decisions to play round the press. But the lads, there was just the unity of lads buying into what were asking. And I think the big thing for me is that when the lads understand and see the outcome, it just gives them more enthusiasm, more confidence to go and buy into it more. And then, obviously, Greggy getting his three goals, which is hugely important for us, because, no, we need to score x amount of goals this year, and it can’t Just be from one or two people. And Greggy is someone that is a huge goal threat. And I think his levels have jumped massively in terms of his fitness and his power. He’s really leading the way in terms of the running and the stats and the power and everything. And even with a broken hand, he was working hard. And, yeah, it’s important for us to get a good start, but also score goals, and the goal against is what it is. I didn’t even see it, obviously, with Joe, but the game is different then. So as far as I’m concerned, it’s pretty much a clean sheet for the lads and a Job well done.
Interviewer: Yeah, I mean, you mentioned a little bit on the defensive side there. Obviously, everyone’s got to look at the score and talk about the goals scored, but as well, defensively, you probably didn’t really give away too many chances either, so the best of both worlds on that front, really. Yeah. And I think, you know, in possession, everyone knows what a good team we are, but we’ve maybe just been a bit one sided sort of the last six months or so, and we’ve got better and better in terms of our engagement of when to press, when to be higher, when to keep the structure higher. And I think the lads have been brave in that, you know, and Tinks and Kenton today were fantastic in terms of the way they defend man for man at times, the way they covered the space, but also their bravery not to drop. Now, it’s easy when you’ve got two big, powerful, quick centre arms to drop, and they didn’t. They resisted it and they stayed high. They get good lines, good compactness and. Yeah, and then when you’ve got Hanno able to patrol the right side and obviously grace on the left, it was really good out of possession. And I think that’s something that we need to maintained, because if we can be resilient and hard to beat without the ball. Then with the quality we’ve got, we’ll always threaten the goal and the days where it maybe doesn’t quite come off and It’s only a one goal margin or it’s 0-0 or 10 down. We need to make sure that it stays like that and that we maintain that defensive structure because that’s a platform that allows you to progress.
Interviewer: Yeah. And obviously a good result and a good outcome today, getting three points on the open day of the season. But I imagine very much that it’s a thought process as well of, you know, that’s one out of 46 and still very much a long way to go.
Rob: Yeah, 100%. I mean obviously, obviously you’ve had a lot of changes, so, you know, they’re a good team, they will be a good team and got very good personnel, but they’re at a different stage than we are and we maybe exploited that a little bit. So, yeah, no going to the likes of Woking Yeovil and we’re going to play against very good teams with good players. And we need to be able to find different ways of winning. We also need to find ways of managing games, managing expectations in terms of the way your position want to play. So if it’s direct or if its passing or a mixture of both, we’ve got to be comfortable doing that. I think the nice thing is that its the first game of the season, we get a good win. We played how we want to play, how we expect the team to play, and it shows that the proof’s in the pudding a little bit in terms of the way the lads have worked through pre season, that like you said at the start, the results come and it gives us the confidence to now kick on and try and layer up a little bit more and tweak the things that we felt we need tweaking and keep improving on the things that we felt we could improve on.
Gateshead went viral on social media with a video of them playing out from the back in the 6-0 win over Farsley Celtic in pre-season…
How to beat the press: A Rob Elliot masterclass 👨🏫🤌
🎟️ https://t.co/yW5iWlrZVl#WorClub ⚪️⚫️ pic.twitter.com/czS9bCxDMz
— Gateshead FC (@GatesheadFC) July 31, 2024
In 2023, they again went viral with their 37 pass goal from a 3-0 victory over Kidderminster. 10 players were involved. This is a must watch…
The full version of that Gateshead goal is even better 😍
— tomhwilliams23 (@tomhwilliams23) September 20, 2023
As mentioned, Gateshead delight fans and other Twitter users in 5-1 thrashing over Ebbsfleet to go top of the league on the opening day…
@AdrianoMoke: Sexy football 😍👌🏾🔥
@whickhamrobbie: That third was smoking
@GlennJa18968237: Very impressive performance against a very disjointed team. Only negative was the serious looking injury at the end.
@TheDB30: Hopefully Grayson’s injury isn’t as bad as it looked! Still a hell of a lot of football to be played but never a bad time to lay down your authority. Some way to start the season!
@SuperGregOlley: Unreal football on display deserved the win from minute one
@Dec6666: Classy performance today and 7 nil would have been more reflective. No way they score if we are not down to 10 for the last 10. Shame to lose grayson so early and looking at a lengthy absence. Some star performances around the park, Olley, Oseni, wheelo
@Toonpedro: What a start! We were unbelievable, we controlled the game and we were relentless going forward. Big negative was Joe Grayson’s injury, hope it’s not as bad as it looked!
@Heedonistic_: 🎶 We’ve got Olley, Super Greg Olley…
@jgfc2378: class performance all round
@whickhamrobbie: Top of the league. Wa Gateshead
@tashhqx: Great result lads
@Barwineewindas: That was mint. We are still mint 🎉 Before I get myself emotionally invested for the season, any chance of being told whether there is any point in being this mint or are the council still playing silly twats? 🤞
@ORodge20: Booty keeping it ticking well. Really tidy player on the ball.
@Johntink1: That’s a statement
@mattythfc22: Some of the football on display from the boys here is phenomenal 🤍
@jgfc2378: some beautiful goals there like, proper passing football #WorClub
@LRbix: Jesus fucking christ we are so good at football
@S_Jupp_: We’re gonna win the league

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