Kentish Express Ashford & District
Boss Evans twice turned down the chance to leave Gills this season
If Gillingham miss out on the play-offs this season, there’s a good chance boss Steve Evans will be here to try again whenever the new campaign starts.
Evans has been engaging with fans throughout the lockdown from his home outside Peterborough and he’s established a connection with a club whose fans initially didn’t want him.
Since taking over at Priestfield, he’s twice turned down the opportunity to explore options elsewhere, with other clubs taking note of his work with the Gills.
Evans said: “I have got another couple of years (on contract with the club). When I came in the chairman convinced me on the basis that he wanted it to be a project.
“We have to push water uphill a little to get in the play-offs anditisuptootherstomessup but historically that happens every year. We are capable, he (the chairman) is quite excited because over the last three or four years it has gone to the last week of the season, and he has been needing a point or something to be assured of League 1 safety.
“I didn’t join Gillingham Football Club and spend 80% of my time away from my family to be fighting relegation from League 1. It doesn’t matter what the budget is and we have shown this year that with a bottom budget we are still trying to fight to get into that group.
“We know it will be tough, we need one or two things to happen for us, but that is not bad in what you would say is one and a half transfer windows. There is still lots to be achieved, for sure.”
Evans chose the challenge of taking the Gills back to the Championship above several others last summer when he had options on the table.
Speaking about further interest in his services midway through this campaign, Evans said: “The chairman made me aware on two different occasions that clubs had made an approach for my services and were willing to pay the compensatory figures. To be fair, both times, the conversation lasted 10 seconds, out of politeness.
“I told the charman I want to be here, we have started this, he agreed and said ‘shall I tell them you want to get on with this project?’ ‘Yes please’ I said, both times.”
One of the clubs showing an interest was at the lower end of the Championship and another one was in Scotland’s top-flight.
Evans added: “I spent four or five weeks chatting to the chairman in the summer. Was it going to be a project or was I going to just be here for a year.
“In the back of the chairman’s mind he might have been thinking I would be here five or six months and when an opportunity came I would jump.
“I said, ‘if Glasgow Celtic pick up the phone, I’ll be on the train and handing the car keys back!’ Chances are I won’t go as high as that but when (those clubs came in for me), the conversation didn’t last long at all.
“That has probably strengthened the bond between us and what we both want to achieve, because certainly with the Scottish interest, he probably thought I would be keen because it was the SPL and I would want to move back to Scotland, but I have no thoughts of either.”
Evans had been living away from home before the coronaviorus crisis, on St Mary’s Island in Chatham.
While making progress on the field, Evans has made plenty off it too. He was once hounded off the Priestfield pitch as Rotherham United manager but the Gills fans in the Rainham End have been singing his name this season.
He said: “I have been brilliantly received by the people of Gillingham, from St Mary’s to the town centre of Gillingham itself. People stop me in Tesco to say hello.
“You never achieve anything of much if you are divided. Look at the clubs who are successful, it’s the ones who are knitted together, Liverpool, West Brom or Leeds.
“It is systematic through the leagues that the teams who perform well are the ones who normally have a decent budget but you need to be as one, with manager and chairman. It has to be the strongest relationship of all, then players, staff and supporters.
“You have to win and lose together. We have pretty much done that in our games at Priestfield. We have won together and enjoyed it and been flat and low when we haven’t, but we have been around to pick each other up.”