“If they don’t work hard then they won’t play for me!”  New Gillingham boss John Coleman’s stark warning to his new Gillingham squad as he met the press for the first time since his appointment on Sunday evening. 

Speaking on Monday afternoon the new boss told KSN and the assembled press, “I saw Gillingham play earlier on in the season.”

“And don’t forget that they were top for a time. Sometimes things can go against you for no apparent reason. I think that there are good players here and there is an opportunity now to tweak a few things and hopefully get us playing football that will really excite the fans.” 

“It’s an exciting time for me, the thrill of preparing for a Saturday is something else. When you have been in that situation, and I’m sure Jimmy (Bell, Coleman’s right-hand man) will say the same thing, you really cannot beat it!”

“I’m getting tingles now just thinking about the weekend. I can’t wait to get the players in for their first session on Tuesday and get them to buy into what I am thinking!”

“Then you get the planning bits – Jimmy does a lot of work on that and doesn’t get the credit he deserves as a coach, but I think that that is the way with English coaches in this day and age, that they don’t get that credit that they deserve.” 

Coleman’s first two games in charge are at MEMS Priestfield against Fleetwood Town on Saturday and then Doncaster Rovers on January 18th – and the new boss said, “Some people will say that we couldn’t wish for a better start; well, it’s straight into the “lion’s den” aren’t we?”

“You either sink or you swim. I can’t guarantee results, just look at Pep at the moment, but all we can do is to change the parameters of your success. What does success look like for me?”

“The team working really hard, the team adapting to the plan that I want which is the front foot, high press game; I want to take the game to the opposition, I want people to encourage each other, I want a positive attitude.”

“If we can get all of them as the parameters for your success, the more you hit them, the better the chance of winning games, and it comes hand-in-hand.” 

“And not feeling sorry for yourselves either; when things go wrong, the first thing I look at is myself and what could I have done differently, so there will be no excuses.”

“I like to be honest after every game and people sometimes don’t like that anymore, as more and more you see managers interviews after a game getting pulled apart because whatever they say you cannot please people because of the advent of social media.”

“All I can do is to be honest and that’s what I have tried to do all through my career.”

A managerial career that currently stretches to nearly 1,400 games with a winning percentage of over forty percent and has spanned the last three decades with twenty-four of those years in charge at Accrington Stanley. 

“In the main, I have had players who want to play for me, and players who would go through a brick wall for me. If you need a testament to that, my phone has had so many texts from my old players wishing me luck and delighted to see me back in the game especially at a club like Gillingham.” 

“It was an opportunity here that presented itself,” Coleman admitted, “And I had to grab it with both hands! There are opportunities that you have to take… I am at an age now that I believe that I still have a lot to offer – I am still and young man in an old body really,” he joked and continued,

“I still feel that I can do a job; I have a desire and have a vehicle here that can really go places. It’s like going into a race that you know that you are very much in the race as you don’t have to put yourself in the race.”

“The facilities at this club and the way that the players are treated, just from being here a day, is fantastic. But no-one sees that, what they see are the results on the park and that’s what a Football Club is judged on.”

“It’s not Strictly Come Dancing as you don’t get marks for being aesthetically pleasing, it is a very rigid currency in football and that’s points!”

“All my focus from now and certainly with the players from Tuesday morning will be trying to win the next game, which will be difficult on Saturday, but I want it to be more difficult for Fleetwood than it is for us on Saturday.” 

“I’ve been doing some recruitment work for Chesterfield as I know Paul Cook the manager very well, and the first thing he said to me was don’t give them the players you were sorting for us! I get on well with Paul, we speak a lot and are both students of the game.”

“Looking at the squad here, we have a group of players that needs to play a certain way in my opinion, because I have come to this club to make them play a style of football that one, I want to watch and two, that I believe can be successful.”   

“All my career as a footballer in Non-League, I played a decent standard with probably Morecambe being my best spell. I was a goalscorer and when you are a goalscorer, when the team wins, it’s great. But when you score, the rush of adrenalin cannot be beaten and it really is better if you have scored and you’ve won too!

“So ever since I’ve been in management, every time my team scores, I’ve got that same rush, it’s like a drug it really is and I think that when I stop getting that kick, it will be time to put me in a box, and for me to walk away.” 

Image courtesy of Kent Pro Images