Gateshead were flying high at the start of the season as they looked like very serious promotion candidates on the back of a previous campaign in which they reached the play-off final. In Garuy Mills they had the most coveted manager in the league, while the squad looked deep and strong, with quality options in all departments. Indeed, the Heed seemed like the team to beat in the early weeks of the season as some excellent showings and fluent football brought four wins out of the opening six games. That said, they were also destroyed by Grimsby for a shocking 6:1 home loss during that early run and also lost their star man, Marcus Maddison, just before the end of August. The results were steady and generally impressive, however, as the Tynesiders lost just two out of the first 16 games in the league. Wins were at times hard to come by but a promotion challenge looked very much on ahead of an October clash at home against the leaders, Barnet. However, a disappointing performance in a comprehensive 2:0 home loss in that table-topping tussle seemed to shake the confidence of the squad badly. Gateshead never looked the same force thereafter and just struggled to generate good results on consistent basis for the rest of the season. One of the issues was the lack of a proper goalscoring striker, with Danny Wright struggling after a promising start and the rest of the alternatives not deemed good enough. The defence was leaky as well, a far cry from the unsurmountable wall that it was at the tail end of the previous season, and that saw the Heed drop down to ninth place in the table by the end of 2014. An exciting FA Cup tie away at West Brom in the third round ended with a bruising 7:0 loss and there was a feeling that the chances of success this season are slipping away. There were still some good performances at times but the results were just not there as the prospect for the tip-five spots began to look glum. Mills would have been banking on a strong run of form at the end of the season but injuries hurt the squad badly from March onwards, with up to ten players sidelined for the vital stretch at the end of the campaign. Thus, a strong challenge for the play-off never really materialised and the season disappointingly frittered away for the Heed. The frustrating part for Mills is that he genuinely had an excellent side in place, stronger than the one that reached the play-offs in the previous year, but they never managed to catch fire and went into a good run of form. In that regard, it is a disappointing season for the Tynesiders and it resulted with the club and the manager parting ways at the end of it. Mills will be a huge loss but the platform has been laid for further success and Gateshead will be confident that better things are to come next season.
