As the 2024/25 football season approaches, we look back at Bath City FC’s record and their aspirations for the future. Simon Horsford visits long-serving manager Jerry Gill at Twerton Park and finds out how he evaluates success – and how a manager’s challenge is to take on the role of schoolteacher, dad and counsellor.
“It’s not me, it’s we,” says Bath City’s long-serving manager Jerry Gill as he talks about the club’s philosophy – one epitomised, perhaps, by the ‘We Are The Bath’ flag that hangs outside the bar area in the car park. It’s a sentiment that captured the spirit and togetherness of the team – and the fans – last season when they reached the play-offs in Vanarama National League South.
We are meeting in Gill’s small office at Twerton Park (a white board denotes the team’s pre-season friendlies: Bristol City and Rovers, Cardiff City and Port Vale, among them) ahead of the 2024/25 season, which kicks off on 10 August. Gill, 53, is in a relaxed mood ahead of a holiday in Greece and the day before had been helping his brother with some plastering, a job he says he really enjoys as it’s a break from the intensity of managing, which is “a part-time job but I do it full-time. I only get the lads Tuesday and Thursday evenings [for training and then for match-days] but in between I’m always watching games and doing something involving the squad, which is always revolving because of budgets and the leagues, which get tougher and tougher.”
I wonder what he might have done differently last season to get Bath City over the line (they lost in the first play-off eliminator against Braintree Town), “Well I guess two years ago we put a hand grenade into the squad – it was ageing a bit, had probably done it’s time and the level was starting to run away from them, so I had to make some crucial decisions and we came up with a three-year plan.” In the first year, they finished seven points outside the play-offs, but last season was deemed a success “as the in-house target was the play-offs. We also hit really good goals off the pitch too, such as averaging a crowd of 1,400 at Twerton Park, which is mental.
“The atmosphere at the club is the best I have felt in six years, as is the connection between staff, fans and players which, I think, is because of the [more exciting] style of football, and also by bringing in more local lads. [All the more pertinent at a club where the majority shareholder is the Bath City Supporters Society].
Last February, Gill hit the 300-game milestone as manager of the club – a role he has held since October 2017 with a 45% win record – a testament to the board’s belief in him. To put that in context, this is an age when a football manager’s role is a perilous one – according to one recent report, of 1,209 serving top-flight managers in the UK and the continent only 5% have been in the job more than five years.
Nevertheless, Gill admits there is pressure in the job: “It’s a results-based, cut-throat business, but I’ve got chairmen in Nick (Blofeld] and Paul [Williams, football chairman], who say it’s not all about winning all the time.” The National Leagues are very, very competitive, adds Gill. “It’s tough, with the London-based teams and some highly paid players and a lot of hybrid and full-time clubs.”
I wonder then what success looks like at Bath City? “We have probably over-achieved as regards finance, but there are always things to learn, and myself and Nick have also talked about creating leadership groups to reflect on last season and to ask what we’ve done well and what we can do better. These will include the captain and the most vocal players, but the introverted ones, too, giving them a voice. It’s all about small percentage gains, such as whether we had a break for the players on a long away trip.” Another introduction was a post-training gym session, which contributed to an injury rate drop of 50%. Analytics play a big part in how the team is structured now, says Gill, who is also full of praise for the close-knit, “multi-disciplined” team around him, including his assistant, Jim Barron, now 80.
Success, says Gill, can also be seen in a number of other ways, such as in the increase in the crowds and also selling a player such as Jordan Thomas. The 23-year-old was something of a star last season but moved to Cheltenham Town earlier this year. “If we have a young player who sees us as a stepping stone we are comfortable with that and the board never put me under pressure to sell or keep players. If he gets a move to a higher level, which we believe he will, then we get a percentage of the sell-on fee.”
Gill’s passion for the game is clear and surely explains his longevity – “you can’t replace that moment at three o’clock and kick-off time”, he muses. He had an extensive career as a player (right back and midfielder) – playing for Bath City (more than 200 games between 1990-96) and Yeovil Town – but hit the heights during his five years with Birmingham City when they were promoted to the Premier League in 2002 and reached a League Cup final the year before. Among other clubs, Gill played for Cheltenham Town where he spent four seasons and was part of the side that reached promotion via the play-offs to League One. He then honed his coaching acumen with various roles at clubs including Forest Green Rovers, Birmingham City, Norwich City and Wolves; there was even a brief period coaching in India in Delhi, “a real life experience.”
The Clevedon-born Gill (where he still lives) continued playing until he was nearly 40 thanks to keeping fit and being relatively injury-free, aside from rupturing his ACL and later having a titanium plate inserted after fracturing a cheekbone. “When I went from [non-league] Yeovil to Birmingham City, being on top of your fitness and playing at clubs you’d seen on Match of the Day was the best feeling in the world – my last game for Birmingham was in front of 43,000 at Anfield [Liverpool] – ridiculous. I’ve got a picture at home of me and Michael Owen.”
“I can’t imagine playing now, but managing is the next best thing. To sit and watch your team perform in such a confident way makes you feel really proud. I was excited watching them [last season], it put a smile on my face. I am ‘active’ on the sidelines, something I need to improve. I only got booked three times [last season], which is good for me,” he jokes.
Being a manager entails so much more than it used to. “Empathy, understanding and recognising each individual is crucial. There’s so much to learn – you have to be a schoolteacher, a dad, a counsellor, helping the players build relationships within the group and making sure the environment is right.”
Nothing, however, prepared anyone at the club for the horrific injury to Alex Fletcher in November 2022 when the player crashed into a concrete advertising hoarding at the ground and suffered multiple fractures to his skull and sustained substantial swelling on the brain. “It went from a game of football to a really serious situation that was life-threatening. I was the port of the call and had to stay in touch with the group wondering how they were feeling. I was the first to go and see Alex in hospital in Southmead. It wasn’t Alex, he was all wired-up with scarring across his head and the muscle wastage but credit to him, what an inspirational young man to come back from that and then go and play.”
Fletcher left the club to play for Weston-super-Mare and then went on loan to Tiverton Town and is also working for the Professional Football Association in the Brain Health Department. It was a tough call to let him go, a fact that still has an effect on Gill. “No-one wanted him back more than us but we recognised he wasn’t going to get to the level that he was before – there was trepidation and fear in the medical team, are we sure about this? Even though we had been given the all-clear, to be honest I was never comfortable with Alex playing again.”
The most important thing, adds Gill, is that Fletcher got married and had a baby and has got a really good job with the PFA. “But it was difficult because we didn’t want the perception to be that we tossed him to one side, because that wasn’t the case. As a football club we supported him in the best way we could and thank God he was all right. I don’t think I will ever be as challenged as I was then.”
I ask who he most admires as a manager in the game. It’s maybe not surprising that being a Liverpool fan, he jumps in with Jurgen Klopp. “Jurgen is my man. He’s passionate on the side[lines]. Always in the game and he embraced the culture – he was a Scouser. I felt that here last season – they are not an easy crowd to please and that’s fine and sometimes it’s been difficult, but I really felt there was a roar and I want to continue that.” One of the keys to that relationship is that “we make a point of win, lose or draw, I do a post-match interview in the bar and have a few beers.”
He also points to former Cheltenham Town manager, John Ward, who signed Gill late on in his playing career (aged 33). “He was a great manager… he drilled us tactically, a bit like [former England boss] Roy Hodgson. I learnt so much then, even more than under [the late] Trevor Francis [at Birmingham City], but I’ve got much to thank Trevor for because he took the punt on me from non-league (at Yeovil) when I was 26, straight to the Championship.”
Does he have any faults? “I go over-the-top sometimes,” he admits, “and am probably a little bit too demanding at times,” but he clearly sets standards via a style of play – the ‘Bath City Way’ – which he wants to instil at all levels at the club and by promoting a winning mentality. “Last season we won an award for being the nicest team in the league [the National League South Fair Play Award] and Gill says with a smile: “I’m not sure about that.” Watch him on the touchline and you’ll witness that commitment.
For the new season the aim is an FA Cup run “because that is something I haven’t been able to achieve and to get us into the National League, but the Cup is something we need to do for the fans and the club.” Roll on a cup tie against Arsenal, Liverpool or Manchester City at Twerton Park.