Gillingham boss Steve Evans has been talking to KSN this week about potential to the club’s possible return to full time training, before paying tribute to those so tragically killed 36 years ago this week in the Valley Parade disaster…
Speaking after Prime Minister Johnson’s weekend address to the nation, Evans told us, “Hopefully we can see the end… we’re all keen to get out of the front door and front gardens and go back to work whether you’re a manager or a player or you work in a shop or a factory – everyone’s so keen to go back to a normal way of living!”
“Yes, it will be different and there will be changes! But it looks like we’ve come through the peak of this virus and if we can make sure that we just remind ourselves of what got us here sometimes then we can certainly win this battle – it’s a war, we can win the war and we can come through and hopefully come through in a better place as people!”
Focusing on the club’s preparation to return to full training, the Gills boss said, “Our plans are in place – we’re just waiting on a phone call from our leader, our Chairman, to say “Steve, you’re clear to go!” We’ve got James Russell, our head of Medical and head of Sports Sciences, has done a great job.”
“He’s got plans in place for the boys initially to be driving in separately, but coming in with plenty of space between getting ready to train, plenty of isolation on the training ground, making sure that people are the minimum of two metres away, but that only lasts for a week.”
“And then if we’re a week or ten days away from playing football, we’ll have to bring people into the contact sport that we know, and we need to get them ready.”
“And there for me lies more risk than what we would ask of the normal man in the street who does his job!”
“I think when I’m given the instruction and we go onto that training field and you see how young men are, then we all will quickly just put our heads on playing football and it’s great to be out – there will be such enthusiasm, it’ll be like the seven, eight, nine, ten years olds up the park, they’ll all be so keen and eager to train and I think it’ll be great!”
“But I would hate to be that person that has to phone someone’s parents and tell them that their lad’s got the virus or somebodies wife or grandparents – I’d hate to be that person – that’s the risk that we take.”
“It’s probably no greater risk in general terms than anybody in any shop, any factory, anywhere else! The difference is you’re not asking people in factories and people in shops to be having proper contact with twenty-five lads that you’ve not seen and don’t know what they’ve done for seven or eight weeks.”
Away from Priestfield and the current pandemic, Evans paid tribute to the memory of those tragically killed in the Valley Parade fire of 1985 on the 36th anniversary of the disaster.
“It seems a long time ago, but it will never be forgotten!” the Gills boss told us. “I’m a Glasgow Celtic supporter and I remember being four or five years old and we had the Ibrox disaster when sixty-six Glasgow Rangers supporters lost their lives – it’s human life, it’s not about football anymore.”
“And from what I’ve seen and heard on “You Tube” at some of the footage connected with the Bradford disaster, it’s just such a shame. I’ve had my banter with their supporters over the years but they are fantastic people and they’re a fantastic football club, and certainly on Monday when I did my little prayers in the evening, they were in my thoughts as well and god rest everyone of them who perished that day!”
“I remember coming home and seeing it on the news – it wasn’t even a football programme, it was on the news; seeing the flames coming out of the football stadium and wow, so sad!”
Footnote (1) – the Ibrox disaster happened on 2 January 1971, when 66 people were killed in a crush as supporters tried to leave the stadium at the end of an Old Firm game. Celtic took a 90th minute 1–0 lead and some Rangers supporters started to leave the stadium. However, in injury time, Rangers equalised. As thousands of spectators were leaving the ground by stairway 13, some fell possibly trying to get back into the ground, causing a massive tragic chain-reaction.
Footnote (2) – the Bradford fire occurred during a Third Division match between Bradford City and Lincoln City on 11 May 1985, killing 56 spectators in the stadium and injuring at least 265.