by Luke Cawdell

Everything came together for Gillingham manager Martin Allen as his team entered the record books on Saturday.

A club record 11th away win in the Football League came courtesy of a goal from striker Cody McDonald from a corner.

“That is the first goal we have scored away from home from a corner for 16 games, so that’s relieving,” said the Gills boss (pictured).

“To win away, with a clean sheet and a set play that’s been worked on, for a coach and manager and for our supporters, I am sure we are all very happy.”

And it was another clean sheet on the road for Allen’s men – their fifth in a row – despite playing much of the game without regular right-back Matt Fish, after he went off with a twisted ankle.

“We defend as a team and we attack as a team,” he said. “It was very difficult to actually make any substitutions because all the subs could go on and do really well.

“It is tough making that decision as to who can go on to the pitch for our team and help our cause. Whelpdale played right-back and the changes we made seemed to work. Deon came on and did really well.

“We played some fantastic football on a pitch that wasn’t as good as I expected it to be at Chesterfield. We played some great football, one and two touch, moving the ball around.

“The last 20 minutes were a bit scary but we’ve seen it a million times that when we defend in numbers we are strong. We have two very good centre- backs, two good full-backs and a fantastic goalkeeper. All of them do the job so we are not left open.

“There was great backing from the supporters, because they sang non-stop and we should have had two more goals on the counter-attack but we didn’t quite convert.

"It was probably the longest game in the history of football wasn’t it? There were seven minutes of extra-time and I though Match of the Day was about to start. It was a fantastic performance all round from our squad.”