Gillingham boss Gareth Ainsworth has added his praise to the Lionesses triumph in the Women’s European Championship.
The Gills told speaking to KSN ahead of the Gills season opener this weekend at Accrington Stanley told us, “They have been incredible!”
“I was a big fan all the way through!”
“I have a personal realtionship with Arjan Veurink who left the Women as assistant manager to Sarina (Wiegman) after the Final to take the Netherlands national job – what a finish for him!”
“He has absolutely smashed it with the girls and he is such a humble, humble guy. We met doing our pro licence a couple of years ago and I really respect him.”
“I have been able to meet with Sarina a couple of times as well at St George’s Park,” Ainsworth continued, “And to hear her speak is amazing!”
“They won that tournament not just on football; they won it on the other things that I believe are so, so important in football.”
“It is really brilliant to see a team, and I am sure that they will be the first to say that in some games they were probably not the better team, but they found a way to win, and I am a massive, massive fan of that!”
The Gills boss then told us of another connection to the Lionesses squad when he recalled his days at Queens Park Rangers and a certain young lady who started her career in West London.
“Going back to my Loftus Road days, to have Chloe Kelly score the winning penalties was fantastic to see as there are all sorts of connections there too,” Ainsworth said proudly, “But the Lionesses really opitimised how it’s not sometimes the pure game that sees you through and showed exactly what it does sometimes take to win a game and boy didn’t they deserve it.”
“I was a massive fan all the way through cheering and smiling – what a great end to the summer it was and all I can say is that hopefully we can have some of that success to Gillingham one day – at the moment we are building that phase that Sarina put in when she first started and hopefully that can continue for us on Saturday and we start another season.”