Gillingham travel to already promoted Mansfield Town this weekend still with an outside chance of making the League Two Play Offs and Stephen Clemence will be going all out for the win.

We spoke with Head Coach Stephen Clemence this week about this weekend, and he started by saying, “We have to congratulate Mansfield on what they have achieved this season. Nigel (Clough) has done a fantastic job there over the last three or four years and has put a really good team together who are full of energy, full of good football players and they have accumulated a lot of points this season and scored doubled the goals we have!”

“They are a good benchmark for the League and that is where – if you are going to be promoted automatically – you should be aiming.”

“Fair play to them and good luck for next season, but hopefully they will have had a good time celebrating this week… but we are not relying on that – we have to prepare for the best version of Mansfield, and we must go there and get a result for us!” 

Clemence then looked ahead and reflected, “We are all passionate about this Football Club and we want it to do well! We must try and win the last two games and you never know what can happen in football.”

“But it is disappointing when you do not achieve what maybe was said at the start of the season, and maybe what everyone thought what the Club was going to achieve.” 

“But I have said before, what you must do if you do not get to where we want to get to, use that feeling of disappointment to fuel and burn a fire in your belly that gets you going to the point of not wanting that feeling again.”

“I want to feel what the players that we are facing Saturday are feeling… That’s what drives me on every day – to be a winner!”

“And that is what we must remember, if we do not get there this season… remember what it felt like!”

“Remember that day at Bradford when we were all disappointed in the dressing room; remember that day at Harrogate when we were all angry and not happy with each other!”

“There have been a few occasions where we have not achieved what we set out to achieve… remember those feelings and use it to make sure that you come back stronger next time and learn from the experiences!” 

“I think that players in our dressing room will do – a lot of players will be here next season and they have to make sure that they learn from this experience this year!” 

Looking to what Saturday’s opponents have achieved over the past few years under Nigel Clough which has culminated this week in promotion to League One, Clemence told us, “All managers are going to tell you they need time, and I am no different!”

“I have had one difficult window – and it was a difficult one to work in – but I know this summer what is available already and I know that we have targets already that will make us improve.”

“Yes, I have a way that I want us to play, and I think if we get some of those players, we will look at bit more like it.” 

“We’ve scored mid-forties goals this season whilst Mansfield have scored nearly ninety – if we are going to do anything going forward as a Club, we need to be putting an extra twenty or thirty goals – hopefully more – on our goal tally going forward, and if we start doing that, we will then have a chance of being successful all together and we will all enjoy the fruits of that!” 

“There is pressure on managers twenty-four seven in this job and I am sure that that is going to go into the summer as well.”

“This will be my first summer being a manager, but I am expecting to be busy; I’m expecting to go away with my family, but I’m expecting to still be on the phone; I’m expecting to go and meet players at motorway service stations or in hotels or whatever it is trying to persuade people to sign for Gillingham Football Club.” 

“So, I want the summer to be busy, I want us to improve, and for us to improve, myself and other people at this Football Club are going to have to work really, really hard to get some of the signatures over the line!”