Wikipedia:Today's featured article/December 12, 2011

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gillingham F.C. players warm up before a match at Crabble Stadium in 2008

Gillingham F.C. is an English professional football club based in the town of Gillingham, Kent. The only Kent-based club in the Football League, they play their home matches at the Priestfield Stadium. In the 2008–09 season, the club was promoted to Football League One after victory over Shrewsbury Town in the League Two play-off final; however, they were relegated back into the basement division the following season. The club was founded in 1893 and joined the Football League in 1920. They were voted out of the league in favour of Ipswich Town at the end of the 1937–38 season, but returned to it 12 years later after it was expanded from 88 to 92 clubs. Twice in the late 1980s they came close to winning promotion to the second tier of English football, but a decline then set in and in 1993 they narrowly avoided relegation to the Football Conference. Between 2000 and 2005, Gillingham were in the second tier of the English football league system for the only time in their history, achieving a club record highest league finish of eleventh place in 2002–03. (more...)

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