There is a group chat for American owners of EFL clubs — and those of other nationalities who reside stateside — where the topic of conversation often returns to the same issue. How do you get the biggest sports market in the world interested in a lower-league club like Gillingham?
The answer, if you are the owner of Kent’s only professional football club, is simple. A trip to the club’s home ground, Priestfield, which is hemmed in by houses and carries the magic of a 130-year institution, usually does the trick.
“It’s discussed a lot among us, how we can use Welcome to Wrexham or Ted Lasso. They were funny but also made people pay more attention to English football and kept doing that, so Americans became fans,” Brad Galinson tells The Athletic. “Everyone who has come over here has been absolutely hooked and become a Gills follower. So from our standpoint, we really want to introduce our country to what you guys have here, which is fantastic.”
It has been nine months since Galinson, a property tycoon based in Tampa, Florida, and his wife Shannon became majority shareholders in the League Two side. An email to then owner Paul Scally, who had a fraught relationship with fans over his 27-year reign, in 2022 was the first step in a journey that has since seen…
