Last weekend’s game against Shrewsbury proved to be my last as assistant manager but I leave with so many fond memories.

I have enjoyed these last two years at the club and if someone had told me I would be guaranteed a title win and to stay up at the next level during that time, then I would have happily taken that.

Football is a game of changes and that is the job we are in. I wish Gillingham every success in the future – unless I’m in the opposite bench, of course!

I have made some good friends and there are some good people at the club. They’ve made a northerner feel welcome. I haven’t lost my accent in the last two years and one thing is for sure, you do get some odd looks when you speak!

Joking aside, it’s been a fantastic two years. We won the league in the first year and absolutely smashed it and then we hung in there the following season and survived. Those achievements have certainly helped enhance my CV for future employment.

When Martin Allen left in October, I stayed on and worked under Peter Taylor for the first time. Football is about being adaptable and working how people want you to work.

I am proud of what we achieved at the club and I put total commitment into it. It isn’t easy living hundreds of miles away and getting up at 3am to be the first one into work but you do that because it’s the best job in the world.

I have plenty of fond memories and nothing beats the day we won the league, against AFC Wimbledon but the day I will never forget was the week after, when we finished our season at Burton.

We had won the title and finished our season top of the league but at the end of the game, I found out my mother-in-law had died. There are times like that you want to be by your wife’s side but I didn’t even realise until I turned my phone on after the game and got the message. You go from the elation of the final whistle to that and those highs and lows epitomise the job we do.

I would like to thank the football club for giving me the opportunity. I look back at my time with pride and I am sure the club will have many happy years ahead.