“We did well, it was a good season.”

Those are the typically understated words of Matt Holloway, the senior track and field team manager of Gloucester Athletic Club as he reflected on their Midland League Division One title success.

It was Holloway’s first season in the role after taking over from club stalwart Richard Blackwell and it was also the first time that Gloucester have won the title.

Not that Holloway is looking to take the credit for what clearly was an all-round standout season.

“It’s all about filling the events,” he said. “Keeping on top of everything and getting people to commit to events.

“My side is the organisation but the biggest part is the athletes who fill the events and go out of their comfort zones.”

It’s certainly been a remarkable few years for Gloucester AC because as recently as 2017 they were competing in Division Four of the Midland League.

They won that title and followed up by winning Division Three and Division Two in 2018 and 2019.

Then Covid struck, but they won a localised league in 2021 so the club have, in fact, won five titles in a row.

“Everyone who competed played a part in last season’s title win,” said Holloway.

“We won three of the four meetings and in the other one we were second when we still scored a high number of points.”

Unsurprisingly, Holloway is more than happy to continue as team manager – “It’s quite good fun,” he said – when Gloucester will again compete in the top flight of the Midland League.

Perhaps more surprisingly, Holloway’s initial aim is simply to stay in the six-strong division.

“Two teams go down so that’s quite a challenge, there are some decent teams in the division like Bristol and West and Rugby so that’s the first target,” he said.

“But we want to retain the title, we’ve got some good young athletes coming through who can do a lot of events.”

That suggests Gloucester are likely to be looking up towards the top of the table rather than over their shoulders in 2023.

The next step after the Midland League is the National League, but competing at that level is not something that the club are currently considering.

"It would be a lot of travelling as the name National League suggests," said Holloway. “Our final meeting last season was in Nottingham, that’s far enough!”

Holloway will start planning for the new campaign in February, about four months before the first meeting.

For the time being, he can take time out to look back on the 2022 campaign.

“It was a full on team effort,” he said. “Everyone put the time in.

“It’s nice that we did it, it’s nice for the team, it’s nice for the club.

“A lot of people love the club at heart, it’s especially nice for them, everyone was chuffed.”