It was not a good season to be a Gills fans. Whilst other relegated sides like Luton and Bournemouth could point to off the field problems for their relegation, the Gills could offer no excuses for dropping down to the basement division for the first time since they left in 1995-6. They tried changing their manager, they tried splashing the cash but nothing could halt that slide to League Two.

He began at Grays Athletic playing in something called the Isthmian League Premier Division, and in that opening season, he avoided relegation. Following that, he got them promoted to the Conference South, and then a subsequent promotion to the Conference in which he secured a 3rd place finish - a long way from where the club was when he first took over. Along the way, he also picked up two FA Trophy wins.

He left Grays before moving on to Stevenage, and whilst he was only with them for just over a year, it was enough for him to take them up to a position of 8th in the Conference, and another FA Trophy win meaning he had won it three times on the trot. Are managers allowed to keep the trophy?

With that sort of record, it's a wonder why it's took so long for a Football League side to take a chance on him. But he took over at Gillingham in November 2007 with the Gills already in the lower half of the table. Stimson was unable to halt the slide earning him the first relegation of his managerial career.

But he comes with plenty of backing if anyone sees the Gills' relegation as proof that Stimson isn't up to the job. His old chairman at Grays said of him: "I would say to any League Chairman, contact Mark Stimson because he’s one hell of a manager. Mark will take his next club to a new level. His footballing knowledge is second to none and the way he plays the game is different gravy”

Relegation will give Stimson the chance to start from scratch, rather than having to do the crisis management role that he had to last season where he already found himself swimming against the tide. He's the right man for the right club at the right time. He knows the area very well, and he knows the level in which he should be looking to strengthen his squad with - as shown with the signing of Jackson from Rushden in January.

The biggest danger to the Gills' season is the momentum from last season. They were very much a club on the decline, and we can talk all about Stimson's success at non league level till we're blue in the face, but the fact remains that he's yet to be proven at league level. The Gills dropped like a stone last year, and the company they kept in the bottom four last season goes to show just how bad that they actually were.

And it would be easy to lay all the blame at the door of former manager Ronnie Jepson, there was certainly ample time last year for Stimson to make a difference. Indeed, in their roles as caretakers Iffy Onoura and former Dale boss Mick Docherty managed to get fourteen points from nine games, so perhaps they would have been sticking with Iffy and the Doc.

The biggest problems which face relegated sides are changing the mindset of losing becoming acceptable. Once you've been relegated losing something like half your games over the season, it becomes easier to accept defeat. Losing stops hurting quite as much as did when it wasn't expected and it's a difficult cycle to get out of.

Changing manager often works, but it's not had that effect with Stimson, and the suggestion from pre-season seems to be that that mindset isn't ready to change just yet. There's been few signings over the Summer so it's pretty much going with what worked, or rather didn't work last season.

The other major problem is complacency. It sounds ridiculous that a side can lose half their games and then expect to be one of the best sides in the division below, but it happens season after season after season. No team has a divine right to bounce back, yet so few teams believe that.

2nd - Automatic Promotion

Of course, we don't go to football on a Saturday afternoon to worry about what the opposition supporters think of us. It's not about a side's reputation within the game. It's about entertainment and competition, and if the Gills supporters are happy with what is served up to them on a weekly basis, why should they give a toss what other supporters think about them? I don't remember a side getting promoted on the basis of plaudits before.

Much of our prediction is based upon Stimson. His record at Grays showed that he started off at a struggling side, but once he got his mark on the side then there was no stopping them. He'll have a big athletic side for him at the Gills, and they won't stop running for the full 90 minutes. And with signings like Mark McCammon, I'd guess the plan will be to bully the opposition into submission.

There's an awful lot of strength within the Gillingham side, and we mean strength in terms of quality. Former Barnet defender Simon King is a real rock at the back, as he should be for the price that the Gills paid for him just over a year ago. He's reliable and on the whole injury free, and he's been tipped to be one of the best defenders at this level next year.

The have a regular Welsh international in midfield in the shape of Andrew Crofts. He's a very popular player at Priestfield and swept the board at their Play of the Season awards the season before last. But we think the on field different will be Jackson who we spoke about before.

He's exactly the sort of player that Stimson will get the best out of, and given Stimson's record for working with strikers, we'd not be surprised to see Jackson's career go the same way as it did for Aaron McClean, Freddy Eastwood, Michael Kightly and Glenn Poole. That many successes is not a coincidence.