With nearly forty players either coming to or leaving MEMS Priestfield, young midfielder Harry Waldock has taken his chance for first team football, and his impressive early season form is giving Gareth Ainsworth a selection headache. 

Waldock has been at Gillingham since the age of eleven and has impressed this season already and on Tuesday at Chesterfield produced arguably his best performance thus far after coming off the bench at Fleetwood the previous Saturday. 

We’ve been talking to the young man about how he got into the first team and he certainly showed to us a determination that he won’t go quietly. 

“You can’t put a value on being involved with the first team,” Waldock admitted.  

“It is so different to playing youth team football or even loan games, because there are points on the line! If you look at the youth team games that I have played in, it’s very much like “it’s ok we want you to play well, but the result is also beneficial”! But now it’s we want results and if you don’t perform well, you cannot put a value on how important that is as a player to understand exactly what it’s like going into a men’s game.” 

Waldock played his part in Tuesday’s draw away to Chesterfield and we asked him about the experience – he told us, “From the game and a one-one was a great result to get at their place. It’s a difficult place to go and a lot of teams will struggle there.  

“If you look at the game, we know that we weren’t good enough first half as there were points where we weren’t pressing aggressively enough nor keeping the ball well enough – we knew that as a team; the Gaffer knew that and the fans knew that!  

“We went in at half time and were told in no uncertain terms. Our ball retention wasn’t good enough which was disappointing as against Northampton last Saturday, we had a lot of the ball and used it well too.” 

“We came out after the break and were much better – Ronan (Hale) got his goal and hopefully that will be just the start for him on a goal streak, and it really is a great point away from home.  

“We went in at half time and said where it wasn’t working and where we needed to regroup as well as the Gaffer telling us where we need to be better helped a lot and we started to dominate, we started to push them back and started to create some opportunities as well. We gained the confidence and that’s where the goal came from!” 

“We had a spell after we scored where we could have got another one. Towards the end I guess because we were away from home, they came back at us but that showed our resilience and can get these results, there could have been a door for Chesterfield to win the game!” 

“We don’t want to lose games; we want to get the points on the board!” 

“I think it’s going well, and I am happy with the way that I am performing. It’s a case of keeping my head down and trying to keep my shirt. I am aware of the fact that there are other good midfielders who are either injured or just returning to fitness at the moment.  

“I just want to prove enough to the manager that I am good enough to play and stay in the squad and that I am worthy of keeping my shirt.”