Gillingham manager Neil Harris rates his side during a mixed 2022/23 campaign in League 2
Published: 05:00, 11 May 2023
Gillingham manager Neil Harris is looking towards a bright future for the club.
The Gills beat top-seven side Salford on Monday and recently defeated the eventual champions of League 2 Leyton Orient. Only Stockport County bettered their form in the second half of the season.
Harris’ side looked dead and buried in mid-January, six points adrift at the bottom of the table, with just two wins and a paltry six goals from their first 23 games.
However, fresh investment led to new signings and a remarkable turnaround. They ended the season just three points off mid-table.
He said: “We ended up three points off 12th but I still don’t see that as a success for the football club.
“That is not where we want to be as a football club, that’s not where Brad (Galinson, the owner) wants to be.
“The first half of the season was my most difficult spell in professional football. I am an honest person, too honest sometimes. You do doubt yourself.
“Was I getting the best out of the group? Maybe I was. Maybe the group didn’t have any more to give, I don’t know, but it wasn’t right.
“First half of the season was a disaster and I would mark that a half out of 10. We got our boots on the right feet and I always managed to name 11 players.
“Second half of the season? Outstanding, brilliant, 41 points (from 23 games) leaves us second placed in the second half of the season. It’s a big score, an eight or nine out of 10 second half of the season.”
In between those contrasting fortunes in the league, the Gills managed to pull off a shock win at Premier League Brentford in the Carabao Cup and enjoyed a trip to another top-flight side Wolves while also reaching the Third Round of the FA Cup and a sell-out game against Leicester live on BBC1.
Harris said: “Brentford gave us real belief and hope that there was a bright future for the football club.
“What we have shown is that with the group we have got we are a top-seven side.
“I am not delighted with where we started and where we ended up in the league table but when you look back from January 14, we did all right.
“We have performed well but we don’t want to stand still. I want to develop the group.
“I want to improve the group, I want players that can go into the starting 11, not just the 18.
“The club will try and support that in the business over the summer and I just want us to keep moving forward.
“I want competition for places and I want us to start well in the summer and carry this momentum we built at the football club on the pitch into next season, from the first game.
“We have seen Orient celebrate (promotion) on our pitch and have seen Salford celebrate (making the play-offs). We have seen some good teams recently.
“We want to taste that and it’s why we are in the game.
“With our form in the second half of the season and hopefully some good players that we sign then that expectation will come naturally. I don’t want to put too much pressure on that now.”
The Gills have been well backed since the new investment from the Galinsons, which has brought fresh hope.
More than 2,000 season tickets have already been sold for the 2023/24 campaign and home attendances figures are up by the same amount during the back end of the season.
Harris said: “Fans have come back, they’ve stuck with us and I have been energised and reinvigorated and it is a bright future.
“For me personally, [and] on behalf of the football club, I thank them, not just the ones that travel but the ones who go to home games as well.
“This is what we want to be as a football club. This is what I came here for 15-16 months ago, to do this, to try and build this and be brilliant together. We are getting there.”
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Luke Cawdell