More has emerged about the reasons former manager Mike Cook has left Gloucester City.
Cook has told Jon Palmer of GloucestershireLive that problems started after the club went out of the FA Cup on October 7th. He had words with the club vice-chairman Alex Petheram.
"Our goals at the start of the season were to try and finish mid-table and hopefully get back to Meadow Park," said Cook.
"We lost the replay to Whitby on a Monday night and Alex had a rant,
which is fair enough as we’d been knocked out of the FA Cup.
"But what upset me the most was him then phoning around the players over the next few days, asking them what he should do about my position as manager.
"I was astonished when I was told about this and in a team meeting after our game at Gateshead the following Saturday, I did make reference to it.
"Emotions were high and some strong language was used as I told the players to ignore all the noise from outside and concentrate purely on matters on the pitch.”
Reportedly Petheram wasn't at Gateshead to see Gloucester lose 1-0.
“I knew Alex was going away on holiday to California on the Wednesday, so we had a discussion on the Tuesday and I told him I felt what he’d done was inappropriate and unprofessional,” Cook said.
“I said I’d had a few words with the players about it and he wasn’t happy, but I felt I needed to stand up to him.
“We agreed to draw a line under it and we didn’t have a problem come the end of the conversation.”
Three games later Petheram was back.
"Team spirit was great, the lads were fantastic and we just cracked on with things while Alex was away for three weeks,” Cook said.
“But he came back and obviously wasn’t happy about things.
“I had actually been contemplating resigning before the Gateshead match because I don’t suffer fools lightly.
“If you are putting things like that in the players’ heads after what we’ve achieved on the pitch, it’s totally unprofessional and inappropriate. I will pull people up on stuff like that all day, every day.
“He’s obviously been chewing over it for a couple of weeks and my departure is purely down to him and the personality clash between us.
“I am just so, so, so disappointed with the way Alex has gone about things.
“But I hope everyone at the club cracks on now because we’ve left them in an extremely good place, with some brilliant players capable of finishing in the top 10."
Full story at: https://www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/im-devastated-didnt-chance-finish-3547133