Gills boss hopes season gets green light to resume

Gillingham manager Steve Evans hopes to be preparing his team to resume football next week but will accept whatever decision comes their way.

Clubs in League 1 are voting whether or not to curtail the current campaign.

Evans’ side haven’t played since early March and a decision on whether they play again this season could come by early next week.

The Gills boss said: “The vote is simple. Do we play football at an agreed time scale, Gills have got nine games left and we get on with it, or does the league stop and points per game average is put onto the teams. The top two are promoted and the next four take part in a play-off campaign.

“I have made my feelings clear to the chairman that I want to play football. I want to get back to work, the players are ready but if it goes against us, if it does go to play-offs and we are not involved then we can, to a degree, plan for next season.

“I have been in this game a long time and you don’t always get what you want, I could go over the season and see things that didn’t go our way, including four or five penalties, but I am sure every manager is the same.

“Our chairman has worked hard, he has been with the chief exec, he has been on and off the phone a number of times, talking expenditure and he has calculated the numbers so that he can make the decision first and foremost, what is right for Gillingham Football Club, and what is right for football and that there is integrity and rationale all over it.

“He has to make the decisions that are right for the football club that go beyond football. There are hundreds of employees at the club for starters and I don’t want to play football at the detriment of 50 people at the Gills losing their job because of cost.

“If we have to stop playing football then at least for me there would be a large protection of jobs and we can plan and get ready.”

If the season is ended now and the league table is decided on points per game average then the Gills would finish in 10th place.

Evans will then be free to plan ahead for a new season, whenever that may be.