'Footballers' wives drove me out'

A fitness instructor at a First Division football club told today how the action of jealous players' wives led to her being sacked.

Champion bodybuilder Laura Church, 40, was dismissed from Gillingham football club after sending a midnight text message to defender Chris Hope.

Today at an employment tribunal, Miss Church, who is claiming unfair dismissal and sexual discrimination, said the message to Hope, 29, was simply to congratulate him on his performance during the side's 7-0 thrashing of Canvey Island in July last year.

Miss Church, who has trained Olympic athletes during her 22-year career, said in the text message: "Well done, brill game, brilliant player."

The tribunal in Ashford, Kent, heard that the message angered Hope's spouse and sparked a witch-hunt among footballers' wives to get the trainer sacked.

Miss Church, of Hempstead, Kent, said that following the text message incident she was told on 12 August, by club chairman Paul Scally, that the players' wives had been giving him "grief ".

She told the tribunal: "Paul said to me, 'I'm going to have to let you go. I'm getting too much grief from the wives and the text message is causing a lot of problems.' I asked to meet the wives and he refused saying they would scratch my eyes out. He said I would have to go before the first home game because if the wives saw what I looked like the s*** would hit the fan."

Miss Church told how at the funeral of Mr Scally's young son she was ignored by many of the wives, and one threatened to get her thrown out of the club.

She said: "I did not think the wives were that much of a threat or had significant power. Now I think there are a couple of wives who rule the club and whatever they say goes." And she claimed that in early meetings with Mr Scally he commented on her good looks and said the wives may be jealous. "He asked me if I could handle the wives as there was bound to be a lot of jealousy. I said it wouldn't be a problem," she said.

Miss Church said she was introduced to the club by Hope and goalkeeper Jason Brown, and started her £2,000-a-month job on 3 July last year. She said she had been praised by players for improving their fitness with a strict diet plan.

Explaining the text message, after the Canvey Island friendly match, she said: "When I texted Chris I did not realise how late it was. I wanted Chris to know how well he had played as I knew it would boost his confidence. I did not know his wife would have a problem with it. She had never mentioned anything before even though I had had one-to-one sessions with Mr Hope.

"I knew it was late but I assumed his phone would be off and he would have got the text in the morning. In the athletic world we text each other from all over the world at all times of day and night. It is completely normal." But, she said, at 9.30am the next day she had a phone call from Mr Hope's wife, who said: "Chris had a big enough ego as it was without you boosting his confidence," before slamming the phone down.

Miss Church went to see player/ manager Andy Hessenthaler. "He assured me he knew the text was innocent but said in the same circumstances his wife would have been jealous too," she said.

The fitness coach also told how she was to join a pre-season trip to France - but three days before it, was informed she could not go. "I was later told by Andy Hessenthaler and Paul Scally the reason was some wives had not wanted me to go, because I would be staying at the same hotels as their husbands," she said.

Former Gillingham player Ty Gooden told the tribunal Miss Church was the best personal fitness trainer he had ever had. He attacked "cliques" in the club made up of particular footballers' wives. "If you were not in those cliques they would not give you the time of day," he said. "It was just certain wives."

He added he would not have been surprised to learn some wives had lobbied to get Miss Church dismissed: "When Miss Church first started my wife was dubious. I introduced her to Laura and things were okay."

And when it was put to him that Mr Scally had the strength to "not allow the wives to influence him", Mr Gooden disagreed. The hearing continues.