Gillingham’s former player and coach Jermaine McGlashan enjoys promotion as manager of AFC Croydon Athletic – a club part-owned by British rapper Stormzy

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!?”