Google search Paul Scally and in a blink of an eye you get 231,000 hits. They include an international comedian, a white-van man and a gay guy called Paul who insists he isn't a scally (whatever that means).

But the vast majority are about the chairman of Gillingham Football Club.

They document the event-filled 13 years that Paul Scally has been in the chair - and this incredible journey has clearly been aboard one helluva roller coaster.

Now, with relegation staring Kent's only football league club in its strained and muddy face, it can be no surprise to the chairman that a section of the fans have turned on him.

They always have and, probably, they always will.

Chanted abuse from the fans and spiteful remarks on football website message boards are the dark side of the game, but nonetheless common enough. Usually Mr Scally responds with a feisty column in the match programme.

But this time something strange happened. The outspoken chairman, who has frequently demonstrated his willingness to slug it out, found himself lost for words. Instead of combative defence or abrasive defiance the fans at Saturday's home match against Bournemouth found only ... silence.

The chairman said he couldn't bring himself to write anything.

Was it anger that made him stay his hand? Or dismay? He was understandably incensed by the incident of a rock thrown at his car while he and his three-year-old daughter were in it. And those brave (or foolish) enough to glance at football website message boards will be aware of the kind of vitriol being poured upon Mr Scally's head.

Kent Online has come in for criticism too, because it edits out the harshest and foulest of the comments posted on its Gillingham Football Club SpeakOut. The fans believe that they have a right for their comments to be published, no matter how defamatory (or actionable) they may be.

Are his critics right? Without Mr Scally, Gillingham Football Club would probably be no more than a fond memory. He rescued it from closure in 1995 and then piloted the club through years of the kind of success the most ardent fan never dared dream of.

But the bubble burst and now the Gills are reported to have debts of £12 million. Even so, Mr Scally says he has restructured the finances with the backing of the club's bank, the Bank of Scotland, and continues to talk of a super new stadium. He says the team could emerge successfully from the ashes of this dismal season.

Hopeless dreaming or an optimistic reality? Who better to assess the crisis than Richard Scase, a professor in organisational change at the University of Kent who is one of the top business forecasters in the UK and was recently voted as one of the Top Ten most influential people in the country. Oh yes, he's a Gills fan too. This is what he said:

"The reality is that the bank is now in control of the club and it doesn't want to see it go under with its loans unpaid. The strategy therefore is simply to survive with as low a cost basis as possible - the lowest possible rate for manager, back-up staff and the players. This means recruiting from non-league clubs.

"The bank will be quite happy if we stay in Div 1, go down to Div 2 and even into Blue Square so long as it gets its money back in the long term.

"The calculation is gates of 5,000 in division 1: 4000 in division 2: and 2,500 in the Blue Square and an annual player wage bill of, maybe, £500,000.

"As far as the bank is concerned, that should do the trick. I am prepared to bet that Ebbsfleet will be in a higher league position in 3-4 years time.

"None of this is the chairman's fault - he is doing his best under very difficult circumstances. But there is no choice but a strategy of survival.

"This is not being negative nor disloyal. The reality is that we are talking about a business, money, and the imposed strategy of a major UK bank.

"In this scenario, the chairman's hands are tied and so are the manager's in terms of what he can do for the club. Enthusiastic, ambitious youngsters can only take you so far.

"Equally, to be successful on the pitch, it requires more than for the manager to keep saying ‘we must get our heads down…’ and for the supporters to ‘get behind the team’. If only success came so easy!"

The fans who are orchestrating a hate campaign will dismiss this article as propaganda for Mr Scally from a media group that is in his pocket.If so, they have short memories. Mr Scally banned us from Priestfield for five years when I was editor of Kent Today and the relationship remains, shall we say, cautious.

Despite the acrimony it will bring, we will allow Mr Scally to have the final word.

"We have to ride this out and I know that eventually we will pull it back round again and those fans who abused me can then consider how fair or unfair they were at that time."

So the incredible journey goes on.