Gillingham face Charlton Athletic at Priestfield on Saturday for a place in Round Three of the Emirates FA Cup, and Max Ehmer has been talking to KSN about the weekend and some of his Priestfield Cup memories. 

“I’ve been involved in the Cardiff, West Ham and Leicester games,” he told us. “I was injured for the first one, but they are the sort of the games that coming to the end of your career, you do remember – Saturday will be a good game; Charlton are “only” one League above, but they are a Championship / Premier League Club!”

“There will be individual moments that I will remember but I wouldn’t pin it down to just that certain game.” 

“Just don’t mention Brackley!” Ehmer added grimacing! 

One of the big threats that Charlton will bring to Priestfield will be striker Alfie May who could have been in Gillingham blue this weekend had May chose The Valley over The Gills.

But Ehmer recalled the time when a young striker from Hythe came to Priestfield for a trial back in 2016… “I can remember when Alfie came here for a trial when he was playing for Hythe as a youngster,” Ehmer recalled.

“He’s always been a goal-scorer, sharp, good movement. But their front boys all score goals as they are good players.”

“It will be a good test and we must concentrate for ninety odd minutes – they will be a threat and will play good football, so we have to make sure that we are defensively sound and when we go down the other end, make sure we are clinical!” 

“It’ll be massive for the changing room to get the bragging rights on Saturday – we’ve got to concentrate on our jobs and hopefully by the final whistle we would have got the job done!” 

“I think there will be a pressure from within the dressing room to do well at the weekend and amongst the staff within the group, as we know that we can win the game, but” Ehmer added, “from the outside looking in, I’m not so sure as maybe not so much with Charlton but certainly the “bigger” teams we’ve played, the pressure is off you and they have to do what we did against Hereford in the last round – you’re expected to go and win the game and when you do, nothing’s really said about it as that’s what should have been done… we certainly think that there’s a chance that we can get into the Third Round again.”