Gateshead had their best season in the Conference since winning promotion three years ago and their eighth-place finish represents quite progress compared to last season. Still, Ian Bogie and his men are left thinking that they missed a good chance to sneak into the play-offs where they could have had a bit of luck and celebrated promotion. They certainly looked promotion material at the start of the season as they won six and drew one of their first seven league games. Defeats to fellow high-flyers Fleetwood and Wrexham soon killed the excitement a bit but it became clear that Bogie has the nucleus of a good squad that could last the distance. Jon Shaw was scoring goals for fun from the start and was a real focal point up front while the pace and trickery of Yemi Odubade was complementing him well too. The team went through a rough patch of form in late autumn, picking just two wins from ten games and dropping to mid-table. There was a brief good start of 2012 before a few poor results and performances against strugglers Lincoln, Kettering and Newport County set back back again. Bogie was struggling to get the team going despite Shaw still coming up with the goods and the serious foot injury of Odubade did not help matters. Gateshead still reminded that they can be a very good team on the day, beating York 2:1 away from home, but also had some real shockers like the 3:1 loss at Braintree. Eventually a 4:2 loss away at the already relegated Bath City a week before the end killed any lingering play-off hopes. In the end the Heed promised a lot at the start of the season but still failed to maintain consistency in their performances and will hope to make a better fist of it next season.
