Gillingham made a late bid to keep Kyle Dempsey when manager Neil Harris arrived on transfer deadline day - but his mind was made up.

Dempsey ended a successful spell with the Gills at the end of last month, after agreeing a move to Bolton Wanderers, finally sealing a deal with the window close to closing.

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He was speaking to the press in Bolton ahead of the weekend and revealed how Harris was keen for him to stay.

He said: “I went in (to Gills) on the morning of deadline day to have a chat with him (Harris) and it is hard to have those sort of conversations with a manager who has just come into the building.

“To be fair, he was top quality. He told me he wanted to keep me at the club and I was honest, I said my mind was already made up.”

As Dempsey packed up his belonging and headed up north, the Gills wasted no time in finding an able replacement, with the eye-catching signing of Millwall’s Ben Thompson - a player more than capable of filling the departing captain’s place.

Bolton had made no secret of their interest in Dempsey, with their manager Ian Evatt announcing his desire for the midfielder to play for them while he was still on Gills’ books.

Dempsey said: “It was one of them where it wasn’t definite. I knew the interest was there. I knew they were keen to get me in the building but my job as a footballer is to play games.

“The situation that we were in at Gillingham, I was never going to let my team-mates down, I was never going to let the club down and also I was coming back from injury and the games were important for me to build up my match fitness up.

“I think me as a player, with my character, I was the captain of the club as well, I had a duty and I tried my hardest until the very end to give my best that I could in the time that I was there.

“I had several conversations with my chairman (Paul Scally) and there were sort of moments were I felt like it wasn’t going to get over the line. I think the most frustrating part was the fact that I knew it was there, I knew the move could be happening.

“I started seeing the (Bolton) team doing really well and I just wanted to obviously be part of that. But there was always that duty, I was the captain of the club and I needed to deliver on a day-to-day basis to try and get the club out of where we were.

"There were times where I didn’t think it was going to happen but there was also relief at the end to get it over the line and I’m just buzzing to be here to be honest.”

Dempsey’s last game for the Gills was that 7-2 defeat against Oxford United.

He said he tried his best, right up to the end, saying: “I knew the position we were in as a club and I was just trying my hardest to deliver what I could on the pitch to try and get us out of that.

“I think all Gillingham fans saw, especially my last game, I delivered a man-of-the-match performance and put my body on the line, which some players probably wouldn’t in the situation I was in – all it takes is one nasty tackle and my move would have been put off. So I gave it everything until the very end of my contract there.”

He is glad to be back up north now, near to his family and friends and playing for a team making a late push for a play-off place.

He said: “It is a great club here (at Bolton) with great facilities, the fans are obviously unbelievable and another thing was that it was back up north and that is where I feel most comfortable.

“I’d never have a bad word against Gillingham because they got me back to being a goalscorer, a creative midfielder, and I always knew I could do that so now it is about turning that into a Bolton shirt.”

Commenting on Gills’ season prior to Harris’ arrival, he said: “I think we had been very unlucky and there was a time when 12 senior players were out with injury, main figures.

“The form we were on it was becoming harder to deliver what I wanted to in a game. There were a lot of games where we were being dominated and it is hard as a midfield player to get involved when games are like that.”

The Gills will welcome Dempsey back to Priestfield when the they host Bolton Wanderers on March 5.