One of the undoubted high spots of Gillingham’s inconsistent season has been the form of skipper Kyle Dempsey and manager Steve Evans is keen to keep him at the club.

The midfielder who was signed in the summer from Fleetwood Town was named as Steve Evans’ skipper following the departure of Max Ehmer to Bristol Rovers and with the exception of an early season injury, has been a first choice for the Gills throughout the season.

Manager Evans has been talking about the influence that Dempsey has already exerted in the dressing room and had nothing but praise for his skipper as he said, “He was a young man who, when he came into the club, was really questionable when I said to him that I wanted him to be my captain.”

“I told him that I didn’t want a captain on the pitch in this particular season with a pandemic around who shouts and bawls – we do enough of that on the side-lines which won’t stop as we’re passionate people!”

“I wanted someone who went about their business and led the troops in the dressing room; who spoke with wisdom; who spoke with care; who really thought things through, and after the disappointment of a Tuesday night at Wimbledon, we had a team meeting about turning around inconsistencies and before any of us could speak, our young captain spoke and I think to a man, everyone in the room – we didn’t – felt like applauding him.”

“He’s really matured, and he’s took that on himself and Gillingham Football Club has to keep the likes of Kyle Dempsey for a very long time because not only is he a top talent, but he’s the type of young man that everyone at this football club from supporters to the owner to everyone, wants to have as a big part of their club.”

Dempsey himself meanwhile is loving his time in Kent as he recently told KSN. “It has been great being at Gills,” the Gills skipper said. “One thing that has been playing on my mind over the past couple of seasons is not being that productive goal scoring midfielder and to get that back probably shows credit to the Gaffer for giving me that belief again.”

“Every time I go into a game now, I feel like I’m going to get a chance to score now and recently I have been putting the ball in the back of the net. Even the fans – even though it’s only on social media – give me massive confidence.”

“For me, it’s going out there and wanting to put in a performance for them for how welcoming they’ve been – I obviously hope that they’ll be able to get back in soon and I can do that “live” in the stadium for them.”

“Especially recently at Charlton and how many Gills fans would have been behind that goal in the dying embers of the game and to score a goal like that and celebrating with your team, you really are buzzing after the game.”

“I can only imagine the scenes if the fans had been in there too it would have been such a nice feeling, but it’s one of those things and we’ve got to get on with it and keep playing football. We’re lucky enough to play football day in, day out – it’s what we do and it’s what we love – so I’m just grateful for that!”

Reflecting on the side’s inconsistency, the Gills skipper said, “We’re not really getting carved open as team and it’s just one or two moments leading up to the goals that are getting us punished.”

“At the moment we go into every game thinking that we’re going to get two or three goals and it’s just putting the silly mistakes (out of our game) and not following the mistake with mistake as we’ve seen, you do get punished.”

“We know that we’ve got to put a run of five or six wins on the bounce to even get us close to where we want to be going into the back end of the year!”

Picture supplied by Gillingham Football Club.