CHIPPENHAM Town’s Luke Gullick says he’s delighted that he’ll be ending the season back with the Bluebirds after returning home from his Caribbean adventure.
The versatile 24-year-old, who filled in up front for the injured Alan Griffin in last Saturday’s loss to Barwell, spent just over five months playing with pro club San Juan Jabloteh in Trinidad earlier this season before rejoining Chippenham last month.
Gullick, who has family that hail from the Caribbean island, played 21 times in the heart of midfield for the TT Pro League outfit and netted eight goals along the way.
After returning to Britain in December, he began training with Conference Premier side Newport County after some help from Hardenhuish Park chief Adie Mings.
But after not earning a deal with the Welsh outfit, Gullick is now focussed on tasting success with the side he first joined in 2007.
“I came back and said to Mingsy that I was going to go to another club and see how it goes,’’ he said.
“Newport train in Chippenham (at Stanley Park) now and he was good to me by sending me their details,” said the Bluebirds midfielder.
“They liked me because they were impressed but they wanted to see me in a game so I came here to play.
“With the situation at Newport, they couldn’t afford to sign me because they wanted to get loan players in with the experience to beat relegation.
“So that didn’t work out but I’ve played here for the last four or five years and it’s home to me.
“It’s not a problem for me to stay here but it’s just a matter of me sorting myself a job and everything like that.”
Gullick’s first foray into Caribbean football was a month-long trial with San Juan in 2009 and the Chippenham man says that he loved every minute of being a full-timer in Trinidad.
“It was amazing. Here is such a quick, fast tempo but over in the Caribbean, it’s still fast and strong but you just get that extra two or three seconds on the ball because they know when to press,” he said.
“For my debut goal, I came off the bench and we were losing 4-1 (against T&TEC) with 20 minutes to go but I got the equaliser for 4-4.
“Financially and with things like my girlfriend being over here, it was right to come back but I wouldn’t rule out doing it again in the future.
“If you watch the games on television, the standard is like League Two or the Conference.”
Utility man Gullick led the line for the Bluebirds in Saturday’s 3-0 loss to Barwell and added: “We’re giving other teams opportunities with silly goals.
“It’s a shame we couldn’t win because we’re so close to getting ourselves up, just like we are every year, but you’ve got to have that belief that we can get there in the end.”
The Bluebirds ended the game with 10 men after Shaun Lamb saw red in the second half and the visitors’ Jamie Towers was again the nemesis for Chippenham as he netted his second hat-trick of the season against them.
Scott Lye fired over the bar for the home side after 12 minutes but the visitors took the lead five minutes later in route one fashion when Guy Sanders’ long ball wasn’t claimed by stand-in Bluebirds keeper Jason Matthews.
Towers nicked the ball from the reach of Matthews and was left to slide the ball into an empty net to make it 1-0.
Lye then hit the crossbar and the Bluebirds had a penalty shout turned down when Lye went down in the box but their task was made even harder when Towers struck again in the 38th minute after intercepting Ian Herring’s misplaced pass.
Towers almost got in again in the 40th minute when he raced on to Luke Barlone’s pass but despite being brought down by the scrambling Lamb, referee Gary Parsons adjudged that the Bluebirds defender wasn’t the last man and only issued a yellow card.
But Lamb was to see red minutes later as the visitors’ Thomas Weale put in a lunging tackle on the defender.
Despite Lamb evading the hefty challenge, he appeared to catch Weale with his studs as he leapt over him.
The Barwell players reacted angrily and Lamb was shown a straight red for a headbutt as he was confronted by an opposition player in the ensuing melee.
The away side got their third in the 58th minute when Weale’s corner was knocked on and Towers stole in to poke home at the near post.
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