Stephen Vaughan experienced extreme highs and lows of watching Gloucester in his seven years as the club’s chief executive.

In the second part of his interview with Gloucestershire Live, Vaughan reflects on some of the great players he has seen grace the Kingsholm turf while wearing the cherry and white shirt, talks about what the future might hold and has a message for the fans.  

Who has been your favourite Gloucester player in your time at the club?

If you’re asking me about the outstanding player, I saw James Simpson-Daniel and Olly Morgan but not for long.

Danny (Cipriani) won the Premiership Player of the Year but if you said to me who has been the best player over your seven years at Gloucester, the player that stands out to me is Billy Twevletrees for a number of reasons.

Yes, he’s a talented rugby player, equally adept at 12 or 13, plays very well as a back-up 10 and sometimes started as a 10 for us, he kicks at 80 per cent, so there’s a number of reasons why I could say he’s a good player but its actually what I see behind the scenes.

He’s the ultimate professional, his rehab, his preparation for games, his diet, he’s last and first on the training pitch and is a great guy around the paddock.

Billy Twelvetrees of Gloucester Rugby makes a run

The likes of Billy, they’re everything you want in a professional rugby player. He might not have the headline grabbing Danny Cipriani skill-set or the Tom Marshall side-step, or whatever it might be, I think all-round he’s been a phenomenal player for the club and I think Billy, if you said who are you taking to the trenches with you, defends well and does everything you want him to do.

There would be a lot of notable mentions in there, people like Tom Savage who had been absolutely phenomenal for the club.

I thought John Afoa was excellent in his time here, the list carries on. I think people like Ollie Thorley, Jake Polledri, in the future etcetera are going to be fantastic players for us but I’d say Billy would be my stand out player.

Billy was one of a few players still here from when you arrived, so what would be the best bit of business you’ve done?

Jake Polledri

Off the top of my head, I think someone like Jake Polledri.

Jake was working at subway and playing for Hartpury so he never came through the system as such. Jake has been a phenomenon since he’s joined into the first team.

I think Jake stands out as someone that could be world class as a player and clearly came in not at the levels of some of the other players at that particular time.

Stephen Vaughan’s ultimate Gloucester XV

15. Tom Marshall

14. Jonny May

13. Henry  Trinder

12. Billy Twelvetrees

11. Ollie Thorley

10. Danny Cipriani

9. Willi Heinz

1. Nick Wood

2. James Hanson

3. John Afoa

4. Ed Slater

5. Franco Mostert

6. Ross Moriarty

7. Matt Kvesic

8. Ben Morgan

You’re leaving the club in a healthy position, so where do you see it going from here?

Honestly, I think sport is very cyclical and I believe that we should now be a top four team minimum for a number of years.

We’re going to have very few players missing for the World Cup. We could- and it’s easy to say it - get off to a very strong start this year, looking at who we are playing and the players they are missing, if England go quite far as well, when these players come back from World Cups they are shattered, it takes a while for those guys to get back into it. I think if  we get off to a great start, if you look when Harlequins won the league back in the day, that a was in a World Cup year when they had very few England players missing.

I’d like to think we could at least consolidate third position but be an outside bet for a top two next season and get a home semi-final and we can beat anyone at home.

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If we get a home semi-final there’s no reason why we can’t win it.

I think we’re in a really good spot, off the field I think we’re going to continue too. This year we had record levels in 11 of about 13 commercial areas.

I think we’re going to try and make sure that were being sensible around what we spend and what we commit to and make sure we keep on top of our costs, but not to the detriment to our playing department, so I only see good times ahead.

We’ve got good people here so momentum will continue, there will be a new chief executive coming in the next one or two months and hopefully they’ll be able to see some low-hanging fruit I can’t see because I’ve been here too long.

How do you see the future of rugby in this country?

I think that CVC (Capital Partners, who have bought a minority shareholding in Premiership Rugby) who have come in has been good.

The money’s been good obviously for clubs. Some clubs have already spent that and others will look to invest it. Some directors will be getting loans back but that is completely up to the clubs.

I think the real key to CVC is their commercial acumen and their ability to get rights and things over the line, like they did with Formula One.

I think that the next TV deal is going to be really important for all the clubs, because although all the revenues are going up for certain clubs, Gloucester being one of them, they’re not going up at the rates of knots that are going to suddenly cancel out losses or suddenly get clubs to break even.

The new exec in the Premiership will be a guy called Darren Childs, who comes with a very good CV in regards to media rights. I would hope that the new TV deal and other commercial deals that will be brought through are at a level that will allow teams like Gloucester to continue to invest and to get the balance sheet a bit more healthy.

There’s another RFU deal to be negotiated in a few years as well so that’ll be interesting, obviously the RFU have their own challenges around cost in the last couple of years but I hope that rugby can continue to sell itself on its values.

A lot of sponsors are interested in rugby because of the gentlemanly conduct, the ability for fair play, the referees being spoken to in the right ways, with a work hard, play hard mentality.

We can’t lose that but I do see a rosy future for English rugby as long as the Premiership clubs continue to work together and improve the customer and supporter experience.

I think there’s a project in place to look at, making sure at a minimum that all Premiership rugby clubs have a following. It may be making sure there’s PA systems of X, Y, Z capability, facilities for disabled people, so the best and worst experiences aren’t a million miles away from each other.

What are your plans now?

I’d tell you but I’d have to shoot you I’m afraid! I’ve got one or two things that have been thrown my way, some of which I’ve had to turn down due to geographical reasons or whatever else, but I genuinely haven’t agreed anything yet.

Gloucester chief executive Stephen Vaughan

There are one or two things that are out there, I’m hoping to stay in sport and the offers I've got are to stay in sport but the next challenge for me will have to be fairly different to where we are in Gloucester.

If I just came in now, I probably wouldn’t be that good coming into Gloucester in a way, but I probably need to go somewhere now that has a different set of challenges, probably needs a bit of a turnaround and quite a lot of change, so I’d expect my next job to be somewhere where people will say ‘okay, I can see why he’s gone in there’.

Why wouldn’t you be the right man if you went to Gloucester now?

What I meant was, if I came into Gloucester now, I’d like to think anyway, we have a playing department with a very good structure with extremely good people in all areas.

We don’t have a huge recruitment issue, we know exactly what we are doing, we planned for the next five years, we know exactly where our academy players are, we know what the succession planning looks like so other than to tweak a few things potentially, there’s not a lot in the playing department to say that it’s broken.

Equally off the field we just put in place a new chief commercial officer which is brilliant, a new finance director is exactly what we needed, we’ve got a load of new improvements going on around the stadium.

So what I meant by that was there’s not enough here that I’d have an issue with to be able to change, and I guess my DNA and how I am as a person is to improve business. You can always improve business but there’s probably a lot of things that have been done that don’t need messing with for the moment.

Have you stayed for longer or shorter than anticipated?

I’d say longer. I expected this to be a three or four year project but we had a change of ownership. When you have a single ownership naturally things get slightly easier.

I could see where the project was going and the fact is that it really would’ve upset me to leave a couple of years ago now we’ve assembled the squad that we’ve got.

It’s flown by. But it feels about the right time in hindsight.

How much are you going to miss this place?

I’ll really miss it. It’s actually been quite odd for me because I’m not from the area, I grew up in Birmingham, and I've lived all over the place.

I never really came to Gloucester for any particular reason, so having now been here for pretty much everyday of my life for the last six or seven years, it feels like home.

A general view of the Kingsholm Stadium

The staff have made me feel extremely welcome, the supporters have made me feel extremely welcome to a point where I often walk around the stadium and chat to people in different parts of the stadium and catch up with my friends in the Shed. I can guarantee you that it’s no vanity project, I do it because I enjoy doing it.

Since I've made the announcement that I’m leaving, I haven’t to been to Hartpury once because I don’t feel it is right for me to get myself back into that environment and energised around next season because I’m not going to be here.

I’m going to miss dealing with all our partners and sponsors, we’ve got some really good people who deal with that at the club, yes they’re on the shirt, Stowford Press and Greene King, but they’re actually really good people as well.

I look around now, you’ve got the hills in the background there, the houses there, there’s something about Kingsholm, its part of the city’s fabric - four very different separate stands, probably four very different people that go to those stands actually, so the place is quite special to me.

I’ll definitely be back and that’s not just a threat I promise, whether it’s in a professional capacity or as a supporter.

Do you have a final message for the fans?

Gloucester support
Gloucester fans

Just a big thank you really for making myself and my family feel so welcome over the years.

It was a tough start really coming in as an ex-footballer, a fella from Birmingham and the place was okay but we had to make a lot of changes, and through that time it wasn’t easy, the club felt like it was going through flux with regards to people coming in and people going out.

I’d like to thank people for there patience, their very kind words recently and their support throughout.

I wish I could name everybody, there was so many nice people that have sent me things even if I met them once, and that genuinely, yes I’ll miss the big nights here like the comeback against Bath this year, there’s many many games.

I've got so many memories but the real memories will be the people and the supporters. The staff have been phenomenal, but when you get a bond with people it starts to go beyond the club, then you get to know them properly, and you realise we’re all the same under the bonnet.

Read the first part of our interview with Stephen Vaughan here