Ambitious Evans talks up Millers’ Premier aspirations

The basis for the Millers’ manager’s theory is that in Tony Stewart, Rotherham have a chairman who is the equal to Dave Whelan and John Madejski, the two men whose money has taken their respective clubs into the Premier League.

Stewart revealed in Wednesday’s Yorkshire Post that he has put £30m into Rotherham in five years, including building a £20m stadium for his beloved club.

The Millers chairman envisages United being a stable Championship club in the next few years, the first step of which would be clinching promotion to League One today in front of 12,000 fans at the New York Stadium.

But Evans believes they can aim higher.

And recent trends of clubs like Hull City and Swansea taking less than a decade to rise from the basement division to the top level, would suggest such an ambition is not that far fetched.

“Is there a better chairman in the Football League?” said Evans when asked about Stewart.

“How many have built a stadium and put £30m in?

“John Madejski’s probably the nearest to him. Dave Whelan as well. But there’s not many like him.

“We’re much bigger than Wigan as a football club.

“People in Wigan might laugh at that now because they’re in the Premier League, the FA Cup final and they have a terrific manager.

“The blueprint for us to follow might be Blackpool, if their chairman (Karl Oyston) would have invested in his team in the Premier League.

“Ian Holloway worked miracles to get Blackpool in the Premier League and they then gave him Championship money to spend on wages. That can never work.

“Whoever the manager is here, if this club ever gets to the Premier League then our chairman is minted and his question will be how much shall we invest.”

News of the size of Stewart’s investment may have surprised some this week, but it did not knock Evans off his perch.

The Glaswegian knew the minute he walked into the club 12 months ago the sacrifice the Millers’ chairman had made.

Evans’ only gripe is that he loaned his chairman a tenner at the start of the week, and still hasn’t been paid back.

“He’s probably trying to give me the slip,” quipped Evans.

“But I’m a Scotsman, we don’t forget.

“Joking aside, I knew how much he had put in to the club before I came in, and you either come in and take that on the shoulders and deal with it, or you buckle.

“If I wanted to be in the top half of League One I’d have stayed at Crawley, but this club has a five-to-10-year plan.”

Rotherham will look to take the first significant step on their journey back up the pyramid today when a win against Aldershot will seal their automatic promotion to League One.

Even a draw may be good enough, if fourth-placed Cheltenham fail to beat Bradford City by six goals.

Today’s opponents are fighting for their lives, and need a big victory and a dramatic chain of events to secure another season of League football.

“It’s important for it to be in our own hands,” said Evans. “You want it to be what you do rather than waiting on radio reports.

“They’re not fighting, they’re relegated. Miracles do happen in football and they can win, but they’re not going to win here 7-0 and watch the other three teams lose, that’s not going to happen.

“They are in essence, relegated. But from that they’ve got a freedom to play, to express themselves as players and that could make them more dangerous.

“But it won’t matter who we’re playing, it matters how we play.

“There’s no complacency because we know the prize. There’s no point this group of men going to the likes of Bradford and getting that performance, beating Fleetwood and Exeter at home, going down to Plymouth and having to work as hard as we did in those games, to then think that Aldershot coming to town would be any different.

“We went to Aldershot earlier in the season and got beaten by three and to all intents and purposes it’s largely the same team.

“But my players know what’s at stake. Everyone is remarkably fit, training has been as good as it’s been all season and the game comes at the end of four consecutive victories, four really dogged performances and they know they have to go and deliver another one.”

Third versus 24th may in any other year be a formality, but as results have shown across the divisions in the Football League this season, nothing should be taken for granted.

Aldershot are managed by Andy Scott, Evans’s predecessor, and have only been beaten twice in their last 10 away games.

Rotherham, despite their lofty position, have lost eight times at the New York Stadium this season, more than anyone in the top eight.

And while he is appreciative of the threat Aldershot carry, Evans knows that if they fail to achieve their goal today, Rotherham’s players, staff and fans must quickly put it behind them and prepare for the play-offs.

He said: “It’s two massive extremes on Saturday. Either the party starts at 5pm or we as a club get ready for the play-offs on Thursday and, as you’d expect, we’ve planned for every eventuality.

“The atmosphere will be electric, we could have sold five or 6,000 more tickets and there’ll be people coming to the stadium today hoping for a ticket.

“The atmosphere will be incredible. We all want to manage and play in big games and there’s nothing bigger than this.

“The one thing the supporters have learnt this season is they’ve trusted my judgement. If it’s 0-0 at the end of 95 minutes then we’ll see everyone celebrating because that will be enough.

“They are working class people, very similar to my background, living and breathing every single decision and every training report. They’ll know before we do what’s going on elsewhere, but they’ve been terrific.”

As for himself, Evans has won promotions with Boston United and Crawley Town in the past, but he believes this will rank as the best achievement of his career.

“This is the biggest club I’ve managed by some distance, it’s got an incredible fanbase and this is a massive game,” said Evans.

“If it was only about managing in League One I could have stayed at Crawley.

“You have to manage at a level with a club that you genuinely believe can take you to the next level.

“At the end of the day very few managers can claim to have taken Rotherham up; Ronnie Moore, Ian Porterfield and Billy McEwan.

“Arguably this would be the biggest of those achievements because of the stadium, and the team coming back into the town.”

[email protected]