Yeovil Town 4 Gillingham 3

GILLINGHAM failed to record a club record seventh straight victory despite almost completing an unlikely comeback at Yeovil on Saturday.

The match started positively with the Gills taking the lead after 12 minutes with a carbon copy of their opening goal against Bradford on Easter Monday.

Matt Jarvis unhinged the Yeovil defence with his pace after being played in by Gary Mulligan and he crossed for man of the moment Tommy Black to knock the ball in at the far post.

But the home side were level and Gillingham down to 10 men almost immediately when Brent Sancho was adjudged to have held back Phil Jevons in the penalty area.

Jevons kept his nerve from the spot after the referee had harshly decided to produce a red card for the Trinidad and Tobago international.

The Gills were laready up against it having been reduced to 10, but they hardly helped themselves with poor defending contributing to the next three goals.

First, Yeovil took the lead for the first time nine minutes before the break when Jason Brown committed himself after Ian Cox had headed an Andy Lindegaard cross up in the air, but he failed to clear allowing Chris Cohen to head into an unguarded net.

Then the game was put beyond Gillingham within 11 minutes of the start of the second half.

On 52 minutes, Jon Wallis was beaten too easily by Cohen who cut the ball back for Paul Terry to make it 3-1.

And Yeovil were gifted a fourth in the 56th minute when Sean Clohessy was well short with his attempted header back to Brown and Arron Davies nipped in to score.

Mike Flynn pulled one back with a shot from the edge of the box with 13 minutes to play and then Andrew Crofts produced a stunning effort to further reduce the deficit, but it was just too late to find an equaliser.

Gillingham: Brown, Wallis, Cox, Sancho, Jackman (Clohessy 37), Black (Johnson 18), Crofts, Flynn, Jarvis, Byfield, Mulligan (Harris 39)
Subs Not Used: Crichton, Spiller.
Attendance: 6,040.