Former Gillingham youth team player Ryan Bertrand went from the fringes of the Chelsea side to a Champions League winner on Saturday night.

The 22 year old started his first ever game for the wealthy Premier League side in Europe, in what has to be one of the biggest games of football around the world and came away with a winner’s medal after his side beat Bayern Munich 4-3 on penalties, after an exciting 120 minutes of football failed to seperate the two sides.

Bertrand left Gillingham for Chelsea at the age of fifteen in the summer of 2005, after making his way through the youth team at Priestfield from the age of nine, in a deal that ultimately went to tribunal with the West London side having to pay an initial £125,000, followed by payments of £100,000 for every ten appearances for the Blues up to 40 appearances.

On Saturday night, Bertrand started in an unfamiliar role of left midfield, having played most of his football at left back, with only fifteen of his 176 appearances having been in a Chelsea shirt, after being farmed out on loan to Bournemouth, Oldham Athletic, Norwich City, Reading and Nottingham Forest.

Most remarkably, Bertrand only made his Chelsea debut back in April 2011, some six years after having left The Gills, but it seems that he may well have a bright future ahead of him after being favoured by Roberto di Matteo.

A former Robert Napier pupil in Gillingham, Bertrand has gone a long way from those days of polishing the boots of the first team players at Gillingham’s Beechings Cross training ground.

Saturday showed what potential he has by playing the first 74 minutes of the game and some commentators have already suggested he could have a future for England too.