In the second part of our exclusive interview with Gillingham Chief Operating Officer Paul Fisher, he reflects on how “little Gillingham” now have belief that they can change the course of their troubled season and remain as Kent’s only Football League club.

Social media seems to have exploded since the Galinson’s arrival as the Gills are linked with players that they would not have previously been done – a point that leaves the COO smiling.

“Good, isn’t it?” he beamed. “it’s little old Gillingham and other teams are saying that we’re changing the landscape! When I saw Nigel Clough’s interview recently online making comments, I did actually think “is this really happening?”

“Whilst I think credit must go to Kenny (Jackett) and Hessie (Andy Hessenthaler), I do think that you have to give massive credit to Paul Scally too because he had a number of meetings with both of them which I was involved in.”

“I think it was pretty clear that the football side of the business was in dire need of restructuring as we weren’t operating like a Football League club and that’s why we’ve gone down the structure that we have as soon as Brad and Shannon came in.”

“And it’s paid dividends already as the results and performances have shown – we haven’t just made signings, I think we’ve made good signings and some real quality players and the plan is that there are more to come!” Fisher added, “but just don’t ask me any names!”

“We’re still in talks with a number of players as football really isn’t as easy as the fans always think. The guys will have a Plan A, but more often than not you end you settling on Plan B or Plan C as many factors come into play.”

Fans have always thought that the Gills potential is absolutely massive and have historically could have gone a lot further.

As a supporter of the Club since the mid-1970s, Fisher is in no doubt that that is the case – he told us, “I’ve always felt – and Brad has said it too – this Club is a sleeping giant! We’ve got the “chimney pots”; we’ve got the population as if this Club was situated shall we say in the North West – an area I’ve spent some time in a previous role – the population in Kent would probably be sustaining two Premier League sides, a Championship side as well as a couple of League One and League Two sides as well.”

“So I think the building blocks for Gillingham Football Club and the fundamentals remain in place. And Brad and Shannon are very much in the same camp as me in wanting to build a sustainable Football Club.”

“We don’t want to have “just” a Football Club where we throw money at problems and three or four years down the road, you’ve lived beyond your means and you end up with a Derby County or some of those other clubs that have well documented problems that we’ve got.”

“You have to remember that in the twenty-seven years that Paul was here, the Football Club never went into administration and we lived to our means and I think that lots of credit does need to go to Paul (Scally) for that.”

“Fans judge things by what goes on the pitch don’t they ultimately and lots of other clubs have had a lot of money and lived beyond their means in divisions higher than us, but some of those have gone into administration once or even twice!”

“When I first met Brad, I immediately thought what a good bloke he is and we’ve immediately struck up a good chemistry and I often find that there are two people in life – energy givers, those who inspire you or there are people who drain your energy – and Brad is very much in the former camp. They both give you energy and they make you feel good!”

Picture supplied by Gillingham Football Club.