The John Coleman era at MEMS Priestfield will begin on Saturday with the visit of Fleetwood Town this weekend, and the new boss is itching to get started.

Talking to KSN at this week’s briefing and after a couple of days in the job, looking ahead to Saturday at 3:00pm, Coleman told us, “I am delighted that the first two games are at home!

“I always love a home game first game of the season, and that is what this is like effectively for us. You want to kick-start things on day one and get the fans behind you in warm sunshine, but I can’t see it being like that on Saturday,” he joked before adding, “performing in front of your own fans and trying to give them a big lift is great, and obviously as we look for our first Gillingham win of the calendar year.” 

The discussion quickly turned to the squad he has inherited pre transfer window from Mark Bonner and Coleman said, “These players are in a good club; a forward-thinking club that is structured very, very well and we should be performing better than they have and that’s no slight on the previous managers, because I am sure they tried their hardest to do that.”

“Sometimes you need a little bit of luck, sometimes you need things to bounce in your favour, when we watch the last four or five games, you can see that sometimes players can get a bit dis-heartened, and it’s very, very difficult to get them back up off the floor when it’s like that!” 

“But I have been doing this a long time, and I think the fact that Jimmy and I didn’t play professional football, although we both played a good standard of Non-League, the “novelty” of being involved in full-time football means that we have never got blase or complacent about it means that every day we come in.”

“It is a dream job, you always dream of doing your dream job and are always thankful for that.”

“We never take that for granted because we have been out in the real world and done jobs that the supporters will be doing allowing them to pay their money to watch us, so we have a duty to them to try and repay them!” 

“We’ve been made to feel very welcome at the club,” Coleman said about his first four days in Kent.

“Everything is in place for the club to move forward. It’s very much a question of getting to know the players and getting to know our way around as well as there is a lot of information to take in in one go. But I am really enjoying it!”

“We have had a couple of good training sessions and I think over the next ten or twelve days, I think that we can start to get a handle on them and how we can steer things forward.” 

“We got here two o’clock on Monday morning and I got in at around ten that night after going to watch a game, it was a full day with training the next day meeting the players.”

“We had an opportunity on Wednesday with the players not being here to study the team’s last four or five games in a bit more depth which gave us things to take to the players today (Thursday), showing them things and getting them to work on them in training which will be an ongoing process.”

“From Monday morning our eyes have been on Fleetwood and the game on Saturday as it’s going to be a tough one!” 

“It’s not been a case of us feeling each other out, but I think that the players are keen to better their position in the League.” 

Coleman continued, “The players aren’t soft and ultimately, they will know that it’s their actions that they perform on the pitch and also steers which way the club goes.”

“A very important part of a football club is the players because without them you have no team to support, so they are essential.”

“I think the players have warmed to it as we saw quite an intense training session on Tuesday. Where we had a full scale match so that we could give people opportunities to impress, and we have done something similar today (Thursday) playing a style of football that trying slowly to stamp our mark on them and the way that we play and have always set teams up, and that went well and meant that we take things even further.”

“I would like to see us play a little bit more football through the lines and not get bogged down with it where it becomes stale and is not exciting for the fans.”

“I want it to be exciting for me too to be fair and I think people can get sidetracked by the perception on the way that you are playing; being easy on the eye playing football does not get you prizes, so our hard currency is winning!”

“But I would like us to play in a style that we can get up the pitch without risking it too much by just giving the ball back to the opposition, that’s what I do not want to do, so they have to be able to mix it up so hopefully we will.” 

“Every manager who goes into a new club says the same thing where it is a clean slate for everybody, and it is to a certain extent, everything is new!”

“It’s new to us as well as we are learning about the players, we’re learning to take to the players, learning some of their names because it’s like being a teacher on the first day of term having a class of thirty where you know their name but can’t remember!” Coleman said laughing, “But we’re getting there. It’s a fresh start for the staff as well!” 

“I know myself as a football fan, if you see things going in the right direction you can put up with things; if you can’t see things going in the right direction, as a fan you get quickly turned off!”

“So, what I want on Saturday is for our fans to be there when the final whistle goes as there is nothing more soul destroying than you haven’t delivered enough to keep the fans there for the ninety-seven minutes or however long it is.”

“And I think we have a duty to every single person who pays their hard-earned money to get in on Saturday gets maximum value for the duration of the game!” 

When asked about his first squad in blue and white, the manager admitted that only Conor Masterson and Oli Hawkins will definitely be missing and when asked about who will have the armband, Coleman said, “Nothing will change at the moment. Everyone has an opportunity, we have a Club Captain at the moment in Max (Ehmer) and he has an opportunity himself.”

“I am looking to bring in new players, it’s an option I have got that I will probably take up, but everyone has a chance now to say to me that we can bring people in, but they can play with me and not instead of me, and I always took that approach as a player myself.”

“I’ve had conversations with Hess (Andy Hessenthaler) already, in fact I’ve spoken to him more than my wife since the weekend!”