Gillingham’s new signing Gabriel Zakuani pulled his house off the market to offer assistance after the recent Grenfell Tower fire.

The inferno claimed the lives of at least 79 people and left hundreds homeless.

Zakuani, 31, is one of Gillingham’s summer recruits and a former Fulham player. He still has a property near the flats in North Kensington and when he learned about the fire he was quick to offer his help.

He said: “I couldn’t imagine what they have gone through, they had nothing, they lost all their belongings. It is quite a poor area and I had a place there, it wasn’t in use and it was the least I could do.

“My place was on the market, to rent out, but I took it off the market to help a few people.”

Zakuani had just returned from international duty, captaining the Democratic Republic of Congo. He offered his house out on twitter and unsurprisingly had plenty of interest.

He said: “It was on the market and I had people coming in at the end of the month but I held them off for a bit longer and I let a couple move in.

“It was terrible what happened. I saw a lot of donations, lots of people were doing similar things so I thought I would offer something else, maybe people just needed somewhere to stay and I got a good response.”