Gillingham skipper Max Ehmer has been talking to KSN about the way his role as Captain as changed during the current crisis and has also aired his views on some of the issues that have come to the fore in the past few weeks.
Ehmer told us, “My roles changed a little bit – it’s a lot more of the other side of the stuff that you’ve got to do when you’re not playing is that makes any sense!
“The Gaffer has been unreal – I speak to him every day whether it be by zoom or phone calls, we are literally speaking every day – sometimes more than once – and we’ve been working out plans on how to best get through this and for when we’re back etc. different little things. Even sometimes its just for a chat; I’ll call him to see how he is – we’ve got that sort of a relationship.”
“I personally think that the League will finish – I just don’t see how they can take a stance with certain being where they are; all the hard work that everyone’s put in over the last seven or eight months I personally think it needs to be finished before any new season is started whatever time that may be whatever the conditions are.
“Get this season done, we have a shorter break and we’ll just crack on with the next season – we need a little break for the hierarchy to sort out fixtures and contracts, but a soon as we can finish this season, and get everything in place for next season I think is no big deal – we’re almost getting our summer break now.
“So, make as beat of that as we can then come back and have a short pre-season – that will be better for me as there’ll be less running hopefully and we can crack straight into games!”
“For the first week or so it was a case of thinking we’d be playing Rotherham today or whoever but after that like a lot of people I sort of lost track of what the day was if that makes sense. Everyday just feels the same really to me – going out doing the fitness work, looking after the kids, and enjoying my time the best that I can.
“I’ve watched some football on TV here and there – the odd highlights bits and stuff but I’m not really a massive, massive football watcher anyway. I’ll watch the big games and certain games in our League. Certain games I wouldn’t watch if it was a Super Sunday if it wasn’t appealing enough for me.
“I’d just sooner spend the day with the kids but in terms of actually watching players, I do more of that rather than watching the actual game because I see people scoring goals and obviously I’d love to do more than that but my game is defending and whether that’s clips of John Terry or Rio Ferdinand – that’s more of what I do rather than watching whole matches of football where I can only see certain bits.”
“We’ve got a date for training at the moment but in terms of games so we can more or less have a countdown and whether or not that goes ahead that’s different, we can assess that closer to the time! But for now, I think it would be good if we’ve got a light at the end of the tunnel…”
But will that start be “behind-closed-doors”? “No-one wants that,” the skipper admitted. “The manager, the players, the fans, everyone doesn’t want that, its football at the end of the day! We’ve got to make best out of a bad situation as best we can and I think ideally we wouldn’t have to do that but to get football going and get all the fans hopefully able to watch it on the telly, I do think it will be a start and then we can move forward from there and I think, as I said, it’s like a light at the end of the tunnel which we can all look forward towards together!”
There have been calls for players to forego some of their wages – and it hasn’t gone down well with the Gills skipper. “It gets me angry to be honest because when you see Matt Hancock on television saying we’ve got to take pay cuts but then he’s not willing to take one himself it doesn’t make a difference.
“Every single one of the players is happy to help the club and there have been discussions already as first and foremost we want to help the club. But when you hear the higher people of the Government not willing to take a pay cut but they’ll work extra hard, it not like any of us will have any days off as we’re still all ready to go as best as we can be…”
“No one would have expected this in our lifetimes but as I’ve said before, we’ve just got to make the best out of the situation whether that be spending time with your family and you’ve got to try and try this into a positive somehow. For me it would be seeing my kids 24/7 which is something that I’d never do – obviously, they’re driving me nuts but that’s the way it is! Please stay safe and keep believing in us and see you guys soon!”