Gillingham captain Stuart O’Keefe was pleased to be able to give their fans some much-needed cheer on Tuesday night.

It’s been hard going for Gillingham supporters in recent seasons, relegated last term with a woeful home record, and now sitting third from bottom in League 2. The Gills caused a shock by beating Premier League Brentford, just days after failing to see off non-league AFC Fylde in the FA Cup.

Those 2,163 Gillingham fans at Brentford’s Gtech Community Stadium were in dreamland as their struggling side surprisingly took the tie to penalties and then won it with a faultless penalty shoot-out display.

“It was nice to give the fans something to cheer about,” said the skipper.

“The fans were outstanding all game. When you see us go 1-0 down early on, they could easily turn, but they didn’t, they stuck by us, they were noisy and they spurred us on in tough times when we had to dig in.

“They have not had much to cheer about in recent times, we understand that, we know it, we need to use it and move on and take this into Saturday (against Northampton in League 2) and then on Tuesday (against AFC Fylde in the FA Cup first-round replay).

“It was an excellent night, we enjoyed it, but we have to recover and do it right for Northampton on Saturday.”

The pressure was off the Gills when they took the penalties, and they scored all six of their kicks.

O’Keefe said: “The gaffer (Neil Harris) said the pressure was on them, we had done exceptionally well just to get to penalties, we were just going to take cool and calm penalties, if we won we won and if not so be it, but the standard of penalties was excellent.

“We have to enjoy these occasions, they are few and far between for lower-league clubs to come to Premier League grounds and play on that stage, so for us to put on that kind of performance and dig in, show resilience, was testament to the boys, it shows what great guts and character they have and they enjoyed it.”

It’s a result that could inspire them to greater things in League 2. They dropped to 22nd on Tuesday as other teams were in league action while they enjoyed themselves on the big stage.

O’Keefe said: “From my experience when you beat teams that you are not expected to, when you go to big Premier League clubs and win games, you have to use it for the whole club to galvanise together.

“We have to stay positive, we have to use this momentum and belief and confidence and take every inch of it into our league (form) because we haven’t been good enough. We know it as a football club and as individuals, we have not been good enough this season but we have showed we can go out there and put on a performance, dig in and get a result.

“We have heart and desire and we are going to need that and more to go up the league which is what the fans, the manager and the staff deserve.”

O’Keefe also commented on the difficulties the team had getting to Brentford, walking the last mile to the ground after their team coach got stuck in traffic for over an hour.

“In a weird way maybe it helped,” he said. “We didn’t have to think about it, we were stuck in traffic at Chiswick roundabout and couldn’t move, we didn’t move for an hour and 20 minutes so we walked it, it was straight into warm-up, straight into the game and that was it.

“I think someone mentioned we should do it for every away trip but I'm not sure about that!”