As radiant, August sunshine glistens around a peacefully silent Aston Gate before Bristol City Women’s pre-season media day, Hannah Buckley takes a seat, pitch side, with a gleam in her eye, surveying the scene. The sight of a top-class venue makes her beam in a way that perhaps only somebody whose CV includes job titles such as regional facilities manager and head of infrastructure, safety and sustainability can. Nice stadiums, particular ones used by women’s sports teams, give her a kick.
But after more than 20 years in football, the past eight at the WSL, Buckley is working on building something rather different: a club capable of thriving independently from the auspices of a men’s club. She was appointed as the Women’s Super League 2 side’s chief executive in May, starting her role in June, at a fascinating time in the team’s history, after they were taken over by the investment group Mercury13 last year to break away from the Bristol Sport group that oversees Bristol City’s men’s team and the city’s rugby union and basketball sides. That breakaway has ensured it has been a relentlessly busy summer and Buckley, in her first sit-down interview, explains some of their changes: “Our headcount in staff has doubled.
We’re having to put in place all the back-house services, which historically would have been carried by Bristol Sport. We’ve made improvements at the training ground, we have upgraded our training pitch, and I think I’d describe it as: ‘We’re in the marginal gain phase,’ reviewing what we have to do [to] supercharge our growth and success.” Buckley, a board member at Somerset County Cricket Club, remembers the anguish she felt when told girls could not play football at her school when she was 11. She revived her playing days at university but creating opportunities for young girls is partly why she says it was a “no-brainer to apply” for the CEO role at Bristol City.
There is a vast catchment area for youngsters across the south-west and she says: “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It’s a true ‘build’ project.” Mercury13, which has investment from familiar names such as the former Manchester United midfielder Juan Mata, owns three women’s clubs: FC Como Women in Italy, FC Badalona Women in Spain and Bristol City Women. Their standalone focus on women’s football, without ties to a men’s team, excites Buckley, who recently led the WSL’s design guidelines for building or upgrading venues specifically for women’s teams.
She says: “Independent clubs don’t carry some of the risks that you potentially see where the men’s club may get relegated or [have a] change in ownership and so the independent nature of the club for me was a real opportunity. Healy says: “This football club, I really feel like it cares about its women’s team. We brought in a head of performance services in January, who [has] great WSL experience – because we can talk about ‘being WSL ready’, but if we’ve got staff who don’t know what WSL ready looks like, how are we going to get there?” Buckley adds to that list of hires by saying: “We now have a commercial director and a head of finance, we now have a full-time marketing manager, a club secretary.” And then there have been the most important recruits: players.
They include the 20-year-old Australia defender Alexia Apostolakis, who signed from Melbourne City in July and says part of the reason she moved from the other side of the world was “how ambitious Charlotte and the staff were to get promoted”. Healy says of the summer recruitment: “We felt we needed more squad depth, and I think we’ve made some really good signings. We’ve again looked at younger players.
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