‘IT FEELS LIKE HOME’
» Vaughan reflects on time of great change at club,
AS Stephen Vaughan walked along the corridor at Kingsholm before sitting down for this interview, a Gloucester fan came up to thank him for everything he has done for the club and express his disappointment to see him go.
It has been like that for Vaughan since he announced he was leaving his role as chief executive after almost seven years with the club with a flood of goodwill messages on Twitter.
» What was the send off like from the squad and staff at Gloucester?
It was lovely. The players and the coaches and staff at Hartpury wanted to put a barbecue on for me and they duly embarrassed me.
Johan (Ackermann, head coach) was great and said a few words.
They prepared a video which will remain internal, but it was really funny – it had some lovely things said from some of the players, but also some good comedy moments, outtakes from the fans’ forum.
They gave me a nice framed shirt and bought me a golf lesson with lunch and 18 holes with a professional.
I’ve been out for lunch with the Kingsholm staff and I’ve got one or two other things to do as well.
I’ve well and truly done the whole goodbye thing, stripped my office and passed it on to other people.
» What have you made of the reaction from the fans?
It’s been surprising and overwhelming.
It’s been really positive, it’s been lovely, it’s been almost universally really, which is very surprising.
I suppose you don’t always know the impact you’ve had until you leave somewhere.
I always said I wanted to leave the place in a better place than I picked it up in – not to suggest it was in a bad place, but I think the team have managed to improve things on and off the field.
The supporters have been incredible, as have the staff and the sponsors, the local council, partners, people from other Premiership clubs, the RFU so it’s been lovely to see.
Not just for me but for people to say ‘we think Gloucester’s a really good club now.’
That’s not just because of me, that’s because of a number of things but the plaudits I’ve received should be spread further.
» A lot of people were surprised to see you going, so why now?
Seven years as a CEO as a top sporting club is more than two times the life expectancy of a normal chief exec.
Not that it means anything, Ken Nottage was here for 12 years.
Having come in I looked at the structure of the playing department and made some recommendations and changes there which we’ve seen the benefit of in the last few years.
When I first came in we had such a huge turnover of staff and players and coaches.
I wanted to stop that and this year we’ve had three or four coming in, three or four going out.
We’re retained some fantastically talented people like Johan, Danny (Cipriani) and Jake Polledri and there are a number more that we’ve done that I can’t talk about at the moment.
We’ve tried to create a no excuse culture so we reset on that years ago and to a point that’s done.
You can always say ‘well you haven’t won the league yet’ but hopefully we will. Do I think the foundations are in place for us to challenge and be a top four team in the future? Absolutely.
Off-the-field we’ve done a lot of great things as well like putting in a state-ofthe-art pitch, the Rugby World Cup legacy around floodlights and facilities, Wifi apps, cashless stadium that we’re heading towards and a number of things we’re heading towards in terms of sustainability and diversity and bringing in some great people, really good brand people, marketing people, a fantastic new commercial officer and finance director.
There was an element of how much could I do to keep myself fresh and interested and sometimes it’s better for a fresh pair of eyes to come in no matter how people think may things are.
It was just a very honest conversation I had with Martin (St Quinton, Gloucester owner) and we’re in that place where a fresh pair of eyes might be the way forward.
Sometimes it’s good to go when the crowd are still clapping and go a year earlier rather than a year late.
I genuinely believe this club has got a lot going for it.
Certainly off the field there are a lot of things moving in the right direction.
On the field I think it’s more obvious and I’d like to see us at least consolidate a position in the top four next season.
» What is the thing you’re most proud of in your time at the club?
Lots of little things I think that people wouldn’t have seen.
I think people is the thing I’m most proud of. You can’t run any business without somebody what’s going on and nobody to deliver it. The rebranding exercise was quite a big thing for the club and at the same time we introduced a new pitch, new kit, loads of new signings, new app, new Wifi - there were a load of things that happened at the same time as the rebadging that got all the column inches. That was an 18 month to two-year project and involved a lot of people, a lot of stakeholders, a lot of leaps of faith in people but by in large it’s been accepted and enjoyed and it puts us in a better place digitally and if we wanted to expand our brand we couldn’t have done it before. On the field I was very proud last season, even though it ended with defeat in the semi-final.
I was proud that group of players, which I’ve had a hand in putting together, and the coaches managed to deliver a squad that got there on merit.
Even though we got beat at Saracens, the amount of people that came up to me on the day and said the amount of pride they were feeling as Gloucester supporters and holding their heads up high.
You can’t really measure that because it’s really intangible, you feel it.
These are people that four or five years ago had some pretty tough times initially, people were disappointed in how the team were playing and performing.
Lots of things around staffing, around retention, how we interact now with supporters, what we do now on social media, what we’re doing with the stadium and plans we’ve got around social diversity and sustainability etcetera and the women’s team.
But the thing I’m most proud of if I look around is the people we’ve got here, people stakeholders can trust to deliver Gloucester Rugby a great product and a great brand.
I honestly believe we’ve got a good group of leaders who will continue the good work.
» What has been the most difficult part of the job?
Probably people again. When I first joined the club it wasn’t long until I had
to make significant change in the business and, most noticably probably, the playing department.
There was one morning where I had to relieve a number of people from their jobs, all good people like Nigel Davies, Andrew Stanley and Paul Moriarty.
Very talented people but as happens in sport sometimes it’s all about performance and results.
That was difficult because I hadn’t been here for five minutes and they were probably thinking, ‘what does this guy know about rugby?.’
Then setting off with a laptop and some ideas of how we could sort out the structure of the club led me to David Humphreys and a completely new structure with director of rugby and a head coach under that, then we started to see some light at the end of the tunnel.
It was never going to happen overnight.
I came in and we just signed 26 new players so clearly it’s going to take three or four years to even get through that contract cycle.
Some of those players were fantastic, the likes of John Afoa and Richard Hibbard, Greig Laidlaw and James Hook so I’m not bemoaning the squad we had, but whether it was assembled in quite the right way, the structured way we work now I’m not quite so sure.
To give credit to Nigel Davies he wasn’t allowed the correct structure to thrive.
He had to coach and do all of what we would now call the director of rugby role.
He’s a good guy and a very talented fella and in a different structure it might have worked differently.
» With the benefit of hindsight, is there anything you would do differently?
Oh god yes, probably loads. Of course there will be lots of things we could have done quicker I guess.
In the last few years we’ve set up fans’ focus groups, maybe I should have done that a bit sooner.
There’s nothing I regret. I often get asked if there are players that left the club that I wish hadn’t, but at the time if the player had a good reason for leaving.
Take Dan Robson. I knew in my bones that Dan was a top, top player when he left but at the time the coach wanted to pick Greig Laidlaw every week and Dan was far too good to be number two anywhere, similar with Matt Kvesic.
On the flip side, Jonny May going to Leicester.
As much as we miss Jonny, Ed Slater’s been a phenomenon for us so you’ll always get one or two things in this environment, but I don’t think there’s anything I look back on and think, that’s an absolute clanger.