Gillingham boss Mark Stimson is delighted after taking the club back into League 1
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Mark Stimson holds the play-off winners'
trophy aloft Picture: Matthew Reading
by Graham Jones
Gillingham manager Mark Stimson admitted he took a great sense
of satisfaction at seeing the club make an immediate return to
League 1.
Having taken the Gills down last season,
Stimsonsaid guiding them back up via the play-offs ranked as his
greatest achievement as a manager.
“I feel a massive satisfaction about it,” he
said. “People say to me that I won three FA Trophy finals on the
trot which has never been done before. I am proud of that, but this
is by far more satisfying because it was about bouncing back and
getting the players to believe in what we were telling them.
“Hopefully, the supporters will see the big
picture of what we are trying to do here. We have not come here to
try to make Gillingham a laughing stock, a bunch of non-league
no-hopers who can’t play or pass the ball.
“We’re trying to bring footballers here, from
whatever level, to try and make supporters of the club proud. I am
sure they went home from Wembley very proud of their football
team.”
Stimson admitted being relegated for the first
time in his managerial career hurt him badly and revealed he sought
advice in the wake of it from legendary ex-Gills manager Keith
Peacock.
Stimson, who played alongside Keith’s son
Gavin at Gillingham and Newcastle, said he needed to be sure of
getting good advice at that time.
He said: “Keith is someone I occasionally talk
to and it was important I spoke to someone last year who had tasted
that sort of thing.
“I took his advice on because he is someone I
respect totally for what he did in the game, and if I can’t listen
to someone like that then I have got no chance.
“He said ‘don’t get too down, have the belief.
You’re a young upcoming manager, you’re like a boxer, you’ve taken
the count of eight and what can you do?
“'Do you take another count and go down for 10
or do you get up and play your way out of it’ which he knows is how
I want my team to play.
“That is what we have tried to do this year,
but we knew our pitch wasn’t up to that style of play. We changed
that and it has worked, and I can now look forward to competing
against some very good managers in League 1 and hopefully have a
lot better season than the last time the club was in there.”
Stimson believes his side’s promotion is
reward for the effort they put in over the entire campaign.
“It’s taken a lot of hard work but that is the
game we are in,” he said. “If you don’t put the hard work in you
don’t get your rewards and we have got the rewards we deserved.
“Full credit to the boys they did (at Wembley)
what they have done for a long while now.
“I was quietly confident that if it went to
extra-time and penalties we would come out winners. Our plan was to
pass the ball, keep switching the play and get the wingers
involved.
“I said to the boys afterwards that I was
proud of that performance.”
Don't miss the 16-page Wembley
souvenir special supplement in Monday's Medway
Messenger
Saturday, May 23 2009
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