More on KentOnline
More on KentOnline
Gillingham are the latest football club to have been hit by Covid-19 and there are growing calls for the game to be stopped.
West Brom boss Sam Allardyce has suggested a pause in play, calling for a ‘circuit break’, and Gills manager Steve Evans has questioned some of the EFL rulings after his side were told to play on Tuesday at Northampton despite fears their reserve goalkeeper may have picked up the virus.
Evans said their back-up keeper Joe Walsh had shown signs of Covid and was left out on Tuesday night, meaning they had no goalie on the bench. The Gills boss also revealed their kitman has recently had the virus and injured striker Dominic Samuel has also caught it.
On Tuesday night there were seven League 1 matches out of 12 that were postponed because of Covid, on the same day that in the Premier League a record number of tests came back positive.
Clubs at Gillingham's level don’t have to test their group on a regular basis. Gillingham’s last group test was in October and another is due next week.
Only elite level football is currently allowed to be played in England but Evans can’t understand how Gillingham are in the same category as teams in the Premier League, who are undergoing regular testing.
Evans said: “We are elite and it is a pathetic comment from the Football League. We are elite but the group hasn’t been tested since October. How are we elite? They are making it up as they go.”
The Gills manager spoke about the Covid situation earlier in the week but since then record levels have been recorded, with 53,135 new cases in the UK. The number of patients in hospital with coronavirus has also soared to record highs across Kent.
Asked if they should carry on playing, Evans said: “There is a call now to perhaps look at it. If the Prime Minister has a lockdown in January then I think there is a call to protect every life.
“We had a Covid scare but got told we had to play so we went with it.
“Northampton also had a Covid scare, with their chief exec and a couple of others, and that was in the back of our minds, but not the players, so there were no excuses (for the 3-1 loss to Northampton).
“Our kitman who has had Covid and is now back in and we are told Dominic Samuel has Covid but he is injured. Now Joe. We have to be very careful.”
The Gills are due to play Plymouth Argyle on Saturday, away. It means the team travelling from a Tier 4 area to one in Tier 2, as of Tuesday before the government's review of the tiers. Cases are also on the rise in Devon.
Gillingham plan to test Walsh again on Wednesday.
The club asked the EFL if they could sign a replacement to join the squad on Tuesday at Northampton but were told no. It’s unlikely they’ll be able to get a deal through until after playing Plymouth.
Evans said: “The Football League said ‘you go with one goalkeeper.’
“We made the decision that Joe couldn’t be involved because if it is Covid you wouldn’t want him in the group. He will be tested and then we will get a result Thursday but we are not allowed to bring a goalkeeper in unless Bonham (the first choice keeper) is ill, or injured.
“Those are the rules but I will watch it with interest because I think at the minute with the Covid issues that a lot of clubs are experiencing there are people at the Football League making these rules up as they go along.
“I see Blackpool lost a keeper and got the lad (Sam Walker, who signed on December 23) in from Reading. Didn’t they have another professional goalkeeper at Blackpool? They probably did, I don’t know.”
Read more on the Gills;
