AUGUST: Gillingham got off to a flying start to the season, winning two of their first three games. The new strike partnership of Darren Byfield and Iwan Roberts seemed to be hitting it off, each grabbing a goal apiece in both the 2-1 home wins over Leeds and Preston.

But, after sitting second in the Championship after three games, Gills lost three of their next four and dropped to 10th.

SEPTEMBER: The month started badly for Gills, with a 4-0 humiliation at Priestfield at the hands of eventual champions Sunderland. After a rare Patrick Agyemang brace earned Gills a 2-2 draw at Coventry and their only point of the month, Andy Hessenthaler’s men lost three straight games.

OCTOBER: The poor run continued into October, with four more losses – including a heartbreaker at Plymouth – making it seven straight defeats for the not-so Super Blues.

Assistant manager Wayne Jones paid the price, with the Welshman being sacked and replaced by John Gorman. But the streak was snapped and some pride was restored with the last match of October, when a Matt Jarvis goal saw Gills beat Wolves 1-0, despite playing with 10 men for most the game.

NOVEMBER: Gills started the month with two goalless draws against Watford or Sheffield United. But a 2-0 home defeat to Derby and a 4-1 thumping at Crewe made Hessenthaler rethink his "I’m not a quitter" mantra and head for the exit.

Hess was kept on as a player but watched from the stands as goals from Darius Henderson and Tommy Johnson overturned a 1-0 deficit against Nottingham Forest to give stand-in manager Gorman the victory.

DECEMBER: After Gorman guarateed himself a 100 per cent record as Gills boss by leaving for Wycombe, the temporary management trio of Darren Hare, Iwan Roberts and Paul Smith showed three heads aren’t necessarily better than one by masterminding a 3-1 defeat at Cardiff.

Stan Ternent and deputy Ronnie Jepson then rode into town to take over, to initial apathy from the fans. But, after a 2-0 defeat at high-flying Wigan, Stan showed he was the man by engineering 3-1 home wins over Rotherham and Coventy, while Gills were unlucky to lose 2-1 at Brighton on Boxing Day.

JANUARY: Gillingham saw in 2005 with a 0-0 draw against Reading on New Year’s Day. They then got a creditable point at Sunderland before Andrew Crofts got the winner against Plymouth on the day he signed a four-year deal with the club.

The win moved Gills within two points of safety but they ended the month with a poor performance and a 2-0 defeat at Leicester.

FEBRUARY: This looked like being the month where Gillingham began the slow, apathetic slide towards League 1. Defeats against Watford and West Ham and draws with Millwall and Wolves meant Gills had won just one in nine.

But a brace from Darius Henderson earned them a 2-1 win over leaders Wigan and gave the club a massive confidence boost.

MARCH: That confidence carried into the visit to lowly Rotherham where goals from Mike Flynn, Mamady Sidibe and Henderson earned Gills their first away win since August.

Gills then earned a 1-1 draw in a heated encounter at Leeds - which saw Gills’ Darius Henderson and Leeds’ Michael Gray dismissed - and beat Stoke 2-1, before a goalless draw with Ipswich moved them out of the drop zone for the first time in five months.

APRIL: Sadly the club weren’t out of the bottom three for long, despite Paul Smith earning them an unlikely point at Preston with a last-minute header. But a point at QPR moved them clear of the relegation zone again and four points from home games against Burnley and Crewe moved them further towards safety – and made Stan and Ronnie even bigger favourites with the fans.

Defeat at Derby and failure to beat Cardiff and Crewe at home, though, meant it went down to the last game for the second season in a row.

MAY: Gills's 2-2 draw against Forest, coupled with Crewe’s home win over Coventry, brought their five-season stay in the Championship to an end.

Related articles:

Counting the cost of relegation
Ternent: my lowest day
Forest v Gills: match report
Forest v Gills: how the players rated