Gillingham manager Neil Harris has praised midfielder Ben Thompson in a week that’s seen the side almost climb out of the League One relegation zone.

The past week has seen the beginning of the Neil Harris era at Gillingham recognised as the manager himself and midfielder Ben Thompson were nominated for monthly League awards.

Harris was nominated for the Manager of the Month, whilst Thompson was nominated for – and won – the League One Player of the Month award for February – a real fillip for the dressing room.

“It’s brilliant,” admitted the Gills boss to KSN this week. “Individually congratulations to Ben for winning the award – thank you to the fans of our football club and ultimately fans from other clubs too!”

“I’ve seen these polls before and been involved in a couple of the committees too, but other fans who haven’t seen you play, vote for you. And they would have done that especially after his performance at Lincoln.”

“It shows me that we do have good players in our changing room – you have to respect that – and as for me being nominated for Manager of the Month… that is testimony to my players!”

“I pick the team and the tactics, but it’s the players who deliver it, so they should take great pride in that and as a source of encouragement that we are being talked about with teams that have done extremely well towards the top of the League.”

Sadly, Harris didn’t lift the manager’s award – it went to leaders Rotherham’s boss Paul Warne – but he wasn’t too disheartened as he admitted, it’s unusual for a manager of team in the relegation zone to have even been nominated.

“You don’t often get nominated if you’re in the bottom half of a table – to get higher, we need to win more games of football that is for sure! But the other guys (who were nominated) have been very good this year and rightly so as the League table doesn’t lie at this stage of the season.”

“It’s great that we’ve been recognised for the upturn in results and consistent performances and for me personally for the upturn in fortunes for the Football Club on the pitch.”

“It means that we’ve done something right over that period of time – we’ve had healthy points return in the month, but it means that the group has responded to me, and the players should take the credit for that!”

Picture supplied by Gillingham Football Club.