The Year of the Tigresses

With the 2024/25 season just around the corner Gloucester City AFC are about to head into a period of significant growth and ambition. We managed to catch up with Director of Women's Football and current First Team Manager, Chris Hill as he gives us his thoughts early pre-season.

Have you managed to have much of a break over the close season?

I’ve had a bit of a break to be honest. My family might think I should have had more of a break but football doesn’t stop even in close season.

What things have you been doing?

Supporting the new board, supporting the men’s first team management with contracts etc, league reports and projections. Plus I’ve been to the USA to attend a recruitment event for our partners UDA. There’s some exciting new talent coming in over the next few years for the lads teams and certainly for the women’s programme.

What are your thoughts on last season for the women?

Overall I am pleased with finishing third but I know that we should have been challenging at the top a bit more. We were tired come the end of the season and had a few injuries. But it was an experience to say the least and something to really learn by. For the Development team we finished second and I thought that would be enough to see then promoted but the leagues were restructured and we weren’t allowed to go up which is frustrating but we are more determined now.

Are you making many changes to your first team squad this year?

I am, I think we need to. We need a bigger squad as we struggled with injuries and fatigue as I’ve said. We’ve been active in our recruitment, we have already announced that Ellie Briscoe and Laina Warren are joining us. And we have potentially two other signings coming in that we can hopefully secure. It feels really positive so far.

We also have a few more UDA players coming in from the USA this season as well, which will give us a lift.

Have you lost any players over the summer?

We have lost a few to be fair. New challenges, overseas programmes are the main reasons. But football and squads evolve and we are no different. We are ambitious and have our goals set out but I feel we have the squad to really push on this year.

Any exciting prospects to look at this season?

Wow, hard to pick anyone out of such talented squads but one player I’m looking forward to working with is a young lady called Sachi and alongside Laina Warren I think will give our fans something to talk about and something for our opponents to fear.

Would you share your targets for this season?

My targets are generally the same as always:

Don’t lose ha ha.

Title challenge.

Good local cup runs

Promotion for our women’s reserves

Make FA Cup First round Proper

Any other changes?

We have renamed our Women’s Development Team to Women’s Reserves which will allow the formation next season of a new Development Team that will allow our current U16s a platform as they enter open age football. This ties up even better with other plans we have around the girls pathway that will be revealed soon. It’s also a better reflection on the quality we have within our women’s set up.

We will be announcing the coaching structure for both squads soon as Brett is committing himself to the Gala Wilton partnership and with that his spare time isn’t as much to continue full on with the reserves. Hopefully that will be all confirmed shortly.

We will also be announcing our girls Development Centre shortly that opens the doors for younger or inexperienced players to either begin their footballing journeys or build on their existing experiences.

I think the next 12 months promises to be a really exciting one for the women and girls set up at Gloucester City.