King's double strike books Gillingham date with Leeds

Gillingham 4 Sheffield Wednesday 1

The dismay of seeing the enticing prospect of a Yorkshire derby with Leeds United vanish before his eyes was altogether too much for Chris Turner, the Sheffield Wednesday manager, last night.

Wednesday's tame FA Cup surrender in a delayed third-round tie left them with nothing more than a relegation struggle for the rest of the season, which is clearly not a comforting thought for Turner. He did not conceal his feelings.

"I won't even say I'm disappointed,'' he said. "I would say I am disgusted by that. There were only two or three players who performed. It was like men against boys. We just didn't have the ability or the strength. I can't defend them. It was not so much what they did with the ball as what they did without it.''

Turner acknowledged the fact that his side, ravaged by injuries and the ineligibility of four on-loan players – one of whom, Adam Proudlock, has already returned to Wolves – was seriously weakened.

"Our line-up was not the strongest," he conceded, "so the opportunity was there for quite a number of players. But they showed they are not First Division material. It didn't surprise me. I knew certain things before they went out there."

There were no excuses from Turner, not even the weather which held up long enough for Gillingham to stage the game even though the narrow roads outside their Priestfield Stadium were a skid pan, with black ice everywhere. The pitch, sanded in places, looked far from hazardous even though Andy Hessenthaler, Gillingham's player-manager, claimed it was dangerous in some areas.

But it certainly stayed true enough for Marlon King to claim Gillingham's first two goals and come close to the first hat-trick of his career. "I'm a bit disappointed," said King, referring to his second-half penalty miss, "but I know it will come."

After scoring six goals in five games he is certainly making up for lost time, having missed most of the first half of the season because he was in prison for handling a stolen car.

Gillingham may have been the fresher side, having not played for 12 days after losing two festive home league fixtures to the waterlogged state of the pitch, but they were still trailing after only four minutes.

Gerald Sibon flicked in a header from Alan Quinn's corner that was just too powerful for Hessenthaler's attempted goal-line clearance. Nayron Nosworthy's free-kick led to Gillingham's 13th-minute equaliser which came after Chris Stringer, deputising in Wednesday's goal for Kevin Pressman, had allowed King's header to escape his grasp. Stringer protested after King had slipped the ball home, as did Ashley Westwood four minutes later when he was adjudged to have handled when under pressure from Guy Ipoua.

King duly dispatched the penalty, then made Gillingham's third goal, racing on to Paul Shaw's pass to fire in a cross-shot. Stringer parried and Ipoua atoned for two earlier misses by scoring from close range.

Tony Crane's trip on Shaw led to King's second penalty, which was saved by Stringer, diving to his right, but Gillingham still managed a fourth goal, the first of the season from Chris Hope. He headed home after Stringer had come for and missed Hessenthaler's deep cross.

Gillingham (4-4-2): Brown; Southall, Ashby, Hope, Nosworthy; Hessenthaler (Spiller, 80), Smith, Saunders, P Shaw; Ipoua (Sidibé, 77), King. Substitutes not used: Bartram (gk), Johnson, Perpetuini.

Sheffield Wednesday (4-4-2): Stringer; Haslam, Westwood, Crane, Beswetherick; Morrison (Knight, 60), Bromby, Soltvedt, Quinn; Sibon (J Shaw, 77), Kuqi. Substitutes not used: Evans (gk), Maddix, M Shaw.

Referee: P Taylor (Cheshunt).