Gillingham take their six-game unbeaten League run to LNER Community Stadium on Saturday to face newly promoted York City with manager Gareth Ainsworth keen to maintain their unbeaten run.

It will be the very first time that the Gills have played at the Minstermen’s new ground and boss Gareth Ainsworth was relishing the challenge when KSN caught up with him this week. 

“York are a very good side – Scott Lindsey knows his way around this division and how to get out of it and I know we will have to respect them all day long.”

“That said, we have to be confident that we can follow that win at Rochdale – and the wins at Priestfield – and make it back-to-back away wins to follow the home double… and there is no reason that we can’t!” 

“My squad is right up there now; we have recruited well despite getting the curve balls of the injuries here and there, we’re still adapting and full credit to the boys – they have been brilliant and have given everything, they really have, working things out which is good.” 

“We are really looking forward to this game… people have told me that it’s going to be a barometer of where we are, but wasn’t it just like that against Bristol Rovers and Tranmere the two weeks before,” asked the Gills boss.

“I think we know coming up to eight, nine, ten games in the League, you start getting the shape of the League, but what we don’t want to do is have any similarities to the last couple of years where we go off like a train and then fall away in a big way!”

“We can’t do that again and my learning from that was looking for trapdoors and pit falls that might come up in the next few games!” 

“The games don’t get any easier, but we do seem to have played a lot of teams in the top half of the table already – a lot of the teams up there and I think the boys have delivered and stood up to the challenge and I don’t see why we can’t do it again at York.”

“Of course, there will be a defeat at some stage without a shadow of a doubt as that happens in football, we’re going to just keep the process going, our fans have sold out our allocation – think the whole game is sold out in fact which will be a fantastic atmosphere, so really am looking forward to this.” 

“Scott knows his way around this division,” Ainsworth went on as he looked across to the man who will be in the other dugout on Saturday – Scott Lindsey.

“He’s got out of this division with Crawley and he’s a good guy too. We know him well here in Kent of course – I have been lucky enough to meet him a couple of times on coaching licenses and we have shared chats at LMA awards and things like that and we will definitely have a beer after the game.”

“He is a task master; his teams know what they have to do to please him, but likewise here – my team knows how to play and the style that I want to play so it’s going to be a good game.” 

York won the National League in such dramatic style on the final day of last season, and Ainsworth conceded, “I have always said that the National League to League Two is probably now the smallest “jump” out of the four jumps.”

“Year after year you see teams performing from and after coming up from the National League… and then the jump to one, the Championship and then the Premier League gets bigger and bigger I am sure that they do.”

“Yet the National League is more or less professional now and we have to be proud of that – it’s part of our pyramid!” 

Ainsworth ended with the squad news. “Bradley Dack and Ethan Coleman got some minutes in the week and Will Goodwin coming back from his injury is ongoing.”

“Conor McManus has gone on international duty with the Republic of Ireland which is massively proud moment for all of us and doesn’t happen very often…”

“It will be headache time when everyone is fit, but I have probably got enough space to take a really strong squad up there and see what they can do!”