Gillingham’s former winger and academy coach Jermaine McGlashan never achieved promotion as a player but has found success quickly as a manager.

McGlashan, 36, took charge of AFC Croydon Athletic in October - a club owned partly by rapper Stormzy and former Crystal Palace forward Wilfried Zaha - when they were 17th in the Combined Counties Premier Division.

His team nabbed the last play-off place before beating the second and third-placed sides, Jersey Bulls and Knaphill away from home, to clinch promotion.

That success followed a spell at Fleet Town where he led them to safety in his first season before an impressive start to the 2023/24 campaign led to Croydon taking him there.

“Achieving promotion is an unbelievable feeling and the first thing I have ever won,” he said.

“I went close in play-offs with Cheltenham and lost in the final but the one regret is that I had never won anything in my career.

“Promotion is so difficult and I had never gone up. We did well with Justin Edinburgh at Gillingham for a time but to actually have a medal, even if it’s the Combined Counties, as a manager, my first promotion, it is such a great feeling.

“Now I have had a taste of it, can we have some more of that!?”

The club’s promotion got plenty of publicity thanks to their well-known owners and McGlashan admits it meant they were a target for the rest of the league throughout the season.

He said: “There is pressure that comes with having those kinds of owners, everyone expects you to have a ridiculous budget and you are almost everyone’s cup final, everyone wants to beat you.

“There are pros and cons, but it is why I am here, a little bit more of a pressure environment. They are Croydon boys, they have gone on to do well in their careers, different pathways, but they are about giving back to the community and putting it on the map.

“I’m from Croydon and the big pull for me was wanting to be a part of that. It’s a club where as a youngster I would try and climb in to play, it was the promised land, but fortunately I went on to play at a half-decent level for a few years.

“My first game in charge was away to Jersey. They were top of the league and I had only one training session with the guys. It was a game I tried to avoid but they wanted me to take the game and we won 1-0! It was a coupon buster, a brilliant result.

“The semi-final back there was brilliant, we had to fly out there and the boys enjoyed that, with an overnight stay, that felt like a final itself. The final at Knaphill was brilliant, the atmosphere was unreal.

“Stormzy came down and made it a big thing with Maya Jama there too, there was a bumper crowd, many of them might have been there just to see Stormzy but it was good for us all.

“He came into the changing room and probably made my team-talk the easiest it’s ever been, He said how proud he was for us to have come so far, I don’t think I had to say much after that, I was quite galvanised by it too.”

McGlashan is a UEFA A licence coach and joined the Gills last year, a club he played for over two seasons between 2014 and 2016. He would later also have spells at Ebbsfleet and Maidstone.

He joined the coaching ranks at Priestfield as part of the Premier League and PFA’s Player to Coach scheme, working across all age groups within the academy as well as helping out with B Team sessions.

Having access to some experienced heads has been a big help in coping with the demands of managing.

“It is relentless,” he said. “At Gillingham I would speak to Neil Harris and Stephen Clemence, I would ask for advice about dealing with different situations and they were both brilliant for me, Keith Millen as well.

“The hardest thing is trying to switch off. You’re at the dinner table or playing with the kids, all you’re thinking of is your next system and what you are going to do. I found that hard but I am improving with that slowly.

“It is a different animal compared to when you are playing, you have to be balanced. I could be up and down as a player, as a manager you can’t be and I have conversations about the mental side of things.

“I have never been fortunate enough to get a promotion as a player, but even a win as a manager there is something different. I don’t know if it is because you can’t physically play and kick the ball, as a manager it hits different.

“I have enjoyed that but the lows can be low, it is probably because you don’t really switch off but when you get a result and things are going well, it is a great feeling.

“Coaching at Gillingham has probably helped me out, you have the ruthless industry as a manager where if you don’t get a result you can get the sack.

“It is brilliant being there, it probably balances me up and I am around a lot of good people that I can learn from, even the likes of Kenny Jackett, wherever you look there is a good infrastructure there.

“You get advice from different areas and I remember Neil Harris, he said the best way to get over a loss is to just get back on the grass! There are little nuggets you take and I speak to Bryan Bull and Keith Millen, whoever it may be, I have a lot of good people around me.

“You go from a senior pro to an absolute baby in the industry and you are learning, you are a sponge.

“I have to give myself some credit to have gone there in 17th, and really build a team. I got rid of a lot of players and it puts a bit of pressure on you because some of them were loved but I just wanted to build a culture and to take the last play-off spot and play second and third away and win, I am really happy, it couldn’t have gone any better for us.”

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