Gloucester City are pleased to announce that former Eastleigh Manager Chris Todd will take over as City Manager on an 18-month deal, officially taking charge of the Tigers after the Billericay Town game on Saturday.
Born in Swansea Todd began his playing career as a trainee with his home town club, Swansea City, turning professional in August 1999. In 2015, Chris was appointed caretaker Manager of Eastleigh and after three victories from four matches, he was confirmed as the new Manager. After Chris’ appointment Eastleigh went on a run which saw them climb to third in the league and an FA cup run which saw them knocked out by Bolton in the Third Round proper. Their exit from the competition saw their form dip and narrowly miss out on a play off place, finishing seventh. Chris then became assistant at Truro City working with Manager Lee Hodges where they achieved a play off position last year.
Upon his appointment, Chris had this to say,
“I’m really excited about the challenge ahead, for me personally it’s a real honour with the Club looking to come home, to think that I’ll be the man to do that. Even though it’s very much a family and volunteer run Club, Gloucester City is an ambitious Club and you can tell that after meeting the board and hearing their vision for it. It is a blow obviously to the Club with the previous manager leaving but that’s football and as one door closes another inevitably opens. With the vision the board have and me coming in, hopefully that will signal the start of a new era for the Football Club. With my experiences, I believe I’ve got a lot to offer and I cannot wait to get started.”
New Club Director Alex Petheram was very direct about Chris’ appointment stating,
“In the short time I’ve been at the Club, I keep getting asked when are we starting the foundations for the retaining wall and stands. Well today we’ve laid the first foundation. We’ve got the manager we set out to get and this is the first massive step to getting us home.”
Rod Jenner, City Chairman, added,
“Despite only closing applications yesterday, our proactivity during Marc’s discussions with Hereford have proved more than fruitful. We’d already sounded out potential candidates and the initial response we had after announcing Marc’s departure gave us that little bit extra to consider.
We interviewed most of our short list at the end of last week in a few busy days, however Chris really was the stand out candidate for us. Knowing that he’d recently been interviewed for other positions at this level, we knew he’d be snapped up soon so decided to act quickly.
As I’ve said before, we’ve had a plethora of applications, but we’d already worked out that we wanted a Manager with experience at our level and above, someone who is a modern football coach and who has the experience of nurturing young talent. We needed someone with the guile to understand that winning football is both the ability to play attractively but also occasionally win ugly. With Chris, myself and the board firmly believe we have that.
Chris understands the vision we have for Gloucester City and it’s great that we can welcome him aboard to work with Tom Webb and Mike Green. I’m very excited about this appointment and think that we’ve been able to turn what could have been a loss into a brilliant opportunity for positive change.”
Further to this, Gloucester City are delighted to confirm that Chris will be working with Tom Webb and Mike Green who will now become Assistant Manager and Coach respectively both on permanent deals.
