Friendship will be cast aside on Saturday as Gillingham boss Steve Lovell looks to get one over his old pal Wally Downes.

Like Lovell, the AFC Wimbledon boss is a regular participant at the Footballers’ Golf Classic in Spain during the summer but this weekend's clash at Kingsmeadow will the first time they have met as opposition managers.

It’s a crucial match for both men with their respective sides caught up in a relegation dogfight that involves half of the teams in League 1.

“I am looking forward meeting my old mate,” said Lovell.

“I am sure we will have a craic afterwards but it will be gloves on for the game.

“In the older days when they used to have the Crazy Gang at Wimbledon, they used to set fire to things in the dressing room and I am pretty sure Wally was a part of that as well.

“He loves the banter, he loves a joke and is a good character to be around but he's very serious as well about his football.

“We both want three points this weekend and will be trying our best in that couple of hours to get one over each other. At the end of the game we will have a chat and a lemonade and discus it all again, that is the way it is."

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Downes was brought in to manage the Dons in the wake of Neal Ardley’s mid-season sacking and their recent form has been impressive, winning their last three to climb off the foot of the table.

“Wally has done a great job there,” said Lovell.

“Over the last six games they will be the inform team in the division.

“They have been winning games 1-0 recently and he will have organised them defensively.”

It’s one of several fixtures for the Gills against teams also facing the threat of relegation.

With scheduled games against so many of the division’s lesser-likes, the threat of relegation isn’t as weighty for the Gills as it is for others.

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Lovell said: “We play a lot of the teams around us, they are big games and Saturday’s is very big for both clubs, a massive game. The next eight will be.

“With everyone playing each other it might be less than 50 points needed this year but I have always said that 50 points is the important one.

“It is down to us. We have got games at home where you would expect to get results from but this league is throwing out all kind of results.

“Nobody apart from the people around this club would have thought we would get anything from Luton (last weekend), but we certainly did, and that is the way we will keep thinking between now and the end of the season. There are 24 points to be gained, that’s the target.”

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