Jerry Gill

Despite his late entry into the professional game – he made his debut in the Football League at the age of 27 – and a career-threatening injury sustained five years later, Gill played more than 250 Football League matches, for Birmingham City, Northampton Town and Cheltenham Town, and was still playing in Football League One, the third tier of English football, three weeks after his 38th birthday.

He usually played at right-back, but could play elsewhere in defence or in midfield.

His various managers viewed his strengths to be his professional approach to the game and the enthusiasm and whole-hearted determination he shows on the field.

Gill began his football career with non-league club Trowbridge Town.

After an unsuccessful 18 months in London with Leyton Orient, he returned to the semi-professional game with Weston-super-Mare followed by six seasons with Bath City.

A season at Yeovil Town, where his goals from midfield helped the club to promotion to the Conference, earned Gill selection for the England National Game XI – England's representative side for semi-professional players – and a transfer to the Football League with First Division club Birmingham City.

Jeremy Morley "Jerry" Gill (born 8 September 1970) is an English former professional footballer who is currently manager of National League South club Bath City.

Since 1986, Bath City had drawn a significant amount of income from allowing Football League club Bristol Rovers to share their Twerton Park ground; Rovers' return to Bristol at the end of the 1995–96 season meant that savings needed to be made, including cuts in the playing budget.

The young Gill was spotted by Frank Clark, who had worked with Knighton at Sunderland and succeeded him as Leyton Orient manager, and Clark signed Gill on an 18-month contract in 1988.

However, he found it difficult to settle – "moving to the east end of London from a small village was a real culture shock for me" – and returned to the West Country at the end of his contract without featuring for the Orient first team.

In December 1990, after a brief stint with Weston-super-Mare, Gill joined Bath City, newly promoted to the Conference.

In his first 18 months with the club he appeared only infrequently for the first team, but in the 1992–93 season he established himself as a first-team player and remained so for the duration of his Bath City career.

In all he spent six seasons with the club on a semi-professional basis, playing part-time while working as a representative for a supplier of pitch care products, and made 218 appearances for the club in all competitions, scoring 14 goals.

He helped the club reach the third round of the 1993–94 FA Cup, in which they held First Division club Stoke City to a goalless draw at Stoke before losing the replay 4–1.

Together with teammate Rob Cousins, Gill joined local rivals Yeovil Town for the 1996–97 season for a fee of £9,500.

Though Yeovil were at the time in the Isthmian League Premier Division, the level below the Conference, under player-manager Graham Roberts they were playing good football and were expected to challenge for promotion.

Gill scored 16 goals in all competitions playing in central midfield, and was capped for the England National Game XI, England's representative team for semi-professional footballers, against an Ireland B team in Dublin.

A deal was struck which saw Gill and Forinton join the First Division side in August 1997 for a combined fee of £100,000, with Gill valued at £30,000 plus an additional £10,000 payable when he played ten first-team matches.

Gill spent nearly a full season at St Andrew's before he finally made his Football League debut, at the age of 27, on 18 April 1998 in a 3–0 defeat of Swindon Town.

His second game for the club, away to Oxford United, was particularly eventful.

With the score goalless, the referee first failed to award a penalty kick when Gill handled the ball in the penalty area, then disallowed the goal scored when the player deflected an opponent's cross into his own net; a few minutes later Gill was substituted, though he kept his place in the starting eleven for the next game.

Then in the summer of 1998, Birmingham paid £1 million for Derby County's Gary Rowett.

Installed as first-choice right back, in two seasons at the club Rowett missed only five league games.

During this period Gill captained the reserve team to victories in the Birmingham Senior Cup in 1999 and 2000.

After Rowett made a £3 million move to Premier League club Leicester City, Gill faced competition from Nicky Eaden, newly arrived from Barnsley, Northern Ireland international winger Jon McCarthy, often used at right wing-back, and a variety of loan signings.

Though Gill struggled to establish himself with Birmingham, and was never an undisputed member of the starting eleven, he played a big part in the club's 2001 League Cup run, and was controversially omitted from the squad for the final.

After Birmingham's promotion to the Premier League, he moved to Northampton Town, where he suffered knee ligament damage which ended his career with the club.

He went on to spend four seasons with Cheltenham Town, helping them to promotion to League One via the play-offs.

In 2002, the Football Association selected an "all-time" team of players capped at semi-professional level, "representing the very best of this level over the years".

Gill occupied the right-back spot in this team, which had previously featured players such as Alan Smith and Steve Guppy who had gone on to represent England at full international level.

International selection attracted scouts from Football League clubs, and Gill was invited to Birmingham City to take part in trial matches.

Halfway through the season, Roberts had brought striker Howard Forinton to Yeovil from Oxford City; his 23 goals in 21 games did much to secure the Isthmian League title and promotion to the Conference, and also caught the eye of Birmingham manager Trevor Francis.

He spent most of the 2008–09 season as player-coach of Conference National club Forest Green Rovers.

After two unsuccessful applications for managerial posts, and a spell playing for Conference North club Redditch United, Gill was appointed manager of Conference South club Weymouth in January 2010, only to resign 44 days later.

He worked as youth team coach at Bristol Rovers, spent 18 months as academy director at Kidderminster Harriers, before being employed at Norwich City, initially as a scout then as an academy coach.

He parted company with the Canaries in July 2015 and soon took up the role of U18 head coach at Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Gill was born in Clevedon, Somerset, and attended Backwell School.

As a schoolboy he played football for Parkway Youth Club, alongside fellow future professional player Marcus Stewart, and for Backwell United, and was invited to join the Bristol Rovers youth team for a tournament in Germany.

After losing in the final, Gill and his Rovers teammates indulged in the local beer to the extent that they were arrested and kept in police cells overnight.

At the age of 16 he joined Trowbridge Town, then playing in the regional divisions of the Southern League (level 7 of the English football league system) under the management of Ken Knighton.