Gillingham assistant boss Paul Raynor has been speaking to KSN about life in lockdown and his increasing frustration over the way that last season was ended and the waiting for a date to possibly start season 2020/2021.

Like many others in football and let’s face it, in the general population as well, Raynor told us, “Just been trying to wile away the hours like most people and not having the normal life that we’ve been used to particularly the way the season ended – not knowing if we were going back or not; when we were going to start again or were we!”

“It’s really been quite frustrating – originally everyone thought the first couple of weeks were a bit novel and it would be all over within three or four weeks, but then it dragged on and on and then uncertainty of whether we were going to start again as it became very frustrating for the boys as well as we were itching to finish the season.”

“I know everyone at the Football Cub – finances apart – were desperate to finish the season and hopefully finish it off with something successful because we fancied our chances with the run-in that we had, the way the boys were playing and with the draw that we got at Sunderland, we really did fancy our chances of a good run-in and it was so frustrating that we couldn’t finish it off!”

“The not knowing just didn’t help and the rumour mongers were out there saying that we were going to start on this date and then that date and every time you spoke to a different person, they had a different opinion or had heard something else.”

“It became increasingly difficult to know what was going on – the Chairman kept us abreast of what he was hearing from other chairmen from the remote meetings that he’s been having, but it was continuingly changing as were the guidelines.”

“The Premier League then announced that they were starting which was effectively a chink of light as if they could start, we can, but it was obviously just the cost of the testing etc that it just wasn’t going to be feasible!”

Looking ahead to any possible return, Raynor confirmed, “We haven’t been told as yet when we will get the confirmation of the budget, but will come with a start date for the new season.”

“As soon as we’re given that start date, obviously you can imagine that we’re already talking to prospective players, we’re already speaking constantly to agents, constantly to prospective clubs for loan players and we’ve already started that process.”

“The only thing that we can’t actually do is physically talk numbers because we don’t know numbers as we don’t know whether we’re going to be playing in front of spectators; whether the EFL are going to wait until spectators are going to be allowed to come into grounds to give clubs an income.”

“So we have to respect that – there’s not a bottomless pit for clubs even the bigger clubs, the Sunderland’s, your Ipswich’s – they won’t want to be playing without spectators because it doesn’t matter how wealthy how these clubs are, there’s just no income for these clubs at the moment.”

“With that in mind, you have to give fair play to our Chairman, he’s been fantastic as he’s keeping the club alive, let’s be honest and his prudence and his shrewdness is keeping everybody in employment with the hope of doing something good next season, so I think everybody is in the same boat – bigger clubs, smaller clubs – and as soon as we get that date, we can make plans!”