STRIKER Trevor Benjamin made a midnight dash to Medway on Friday night to help his new team-mates claim an impressive 2-0 win over West Ham.

Benjamin was only signed on loan from Leicester City at 10pm on Friday night - just 17 hours before Gillingham were due to kick-off.

He then made a late-night trip to Gillingham, arriving just after 1am. But the early morning trip didn’t seem to have any adverse affect on Benjamin, who came on as a second-half substitute to score the second goal against the Hammers.

Gills player manager Andy Hessenthaler said the last-minute loan deal for Benjamin was the result of chairman Paul Scally’s hard work.

He said: “I’m preparing for the game and it’s all going on at 10pm and the chairman’s calling me and saying ‘shall we do it?’ and I’m saying ‘yes, let’s do it, it will be worth it for a month.’

“And Trevor has ended up coming down here at 1am and coming on and scoring the second goal for us.”

Benjamin’s signing, along with the month-long loan of left back Wayne Brown from Watford, fulfilled Hessenthaler’s vow this week to ‘brighten up the squad.’

He said: “Credit to the chairman, we’ve got a couple of players to freshen things up and I’m sure the supporters are really pleased about that.”

Hessenthaler added: “West Ham were poor - but who made them poor? I think it was us because of the way we played.

“We were convincing, we kept a clean sheet and we never gave them a sniff for the whole 90 minutes.”

The match turned on Marlon King’s superb 25-yard free kick and the striker said he was delighted to get on the scoresheet.

He commented: “It’s good to be back in the goals as I’ve had a lot of time out. I just hope I can keep it going. It was nice to get a result and prove the doubters wrong.”

West Ham’s Trevor Brooking, who is keeping the manager’s seat warm until Alan Pardew takes over next month, said: “Gillingham were up for it. They chased, scrapped, never let us settle and wanted it more than us.

“We were second best and can have no complaints.”