Gillingham midfielder Tim Dieng is looking forward to a busy schedule for the club over the Christmas period.
Football across the Festive Period is somewhat of a tradition for English football fans and players, but for some of our continental cousins who have grown up seeing their own domestic Leagues put the “Closed” signs up at Christmas it must take some getting used to…
In the build up to the forthcoming festivities we’ve been talking to Gillingham’s French midfielder Tim Dieng on the changes that he has had to adapt to since he first played in England nearly a decade ago.
“Before I came to England, we had a two-week gap over Christmas in France,” Dieng told us. “As a player you get a whole week off so that you can spend Christmas and New Year with your family but here of course it is different!”
“It was hard to get used to, to start with, especially with me being so far away from my family, but I had to adapt. When I first came to this country, I knew that games were played at Christmas and if I am honest, I was a bit excited,” Dieng admitted. “I’m going to play Boxing Day, and everyone came to see me, so it was good.”
“Having played at Christmas for a while now, you really can understand why everyone loves watching football on Boxing Day. The fans do not like any gap in the season or weekend with no football, so I understand why people look forward to it.”
“But I’m sure there are players who don’t, but I like it!”
“From the fans point of view, it’s great to spend Christmas with family and then on Boxing Day you go and watch the game with the family, so that is great. My family is going to come this year and so I will be spending time with them here – and I will be doing the eating,” he added laughing.
Gillingham face a festive programme of Crawley Town and Sutton United at Priestfield and then a New Year’s Day trip to Essex to face Colchester United – the side that remember ended the Gills unbeaten start to the season back in the August sunshine… “Christmas is going to be massive for us and if we can still be in the mix after that period, it will be a good achievement,” Dieng said, “and we will be able to push on from there for the second half of the season – we all know that it’s an important period and we’re ready for it!”