Jody Bevan, a prolific goalscorer back in the day, is a huge football fan.

He played for a good number of clubs in a career spanning more than two decades, some of them more than once, but if you listen to him talk about some of those former clubs – clubs such as Longlevens, Gloucester City, Cinderford Town and Cirencester Town – it’s soon apparent how much they meant, and still mean, to him.

And people too. He has huge respect for some of his former managers, good footballing men such as Tim Harris, Mike Cook and Brian Hughes, while he is big supporter of current Fairford Town boss Jamie Reid.

Fairford, who play in the Premier Division of the Hellenic League, are the club currently benefitting from Bevan’s footballing knowledge, a club he has been involved with for more than six seasons.

He was manager for five years before taking on the role of director of football, a position the recently-turned 45-year-old still holds today.

But such is his devotion to the club that he is much more than just a director of football – an important position in its own right – because he is also the club secretary and match day secretary.

“I’m also the commercial manager and manage all the kit,” added Bevan, who works in insurance services. “The number of hours I put in at Fairford is at least another full-time job on top of my full-time job. It’s a good thing I love it!”

And while he obviously loves everything about Fairford he readily admits that he’d offload some of the work if he could.

“I’d love three people to come forward and take on some of those jobs,” he said. “We’re asking around for volunteers all the time and if they came forward I could devote more time to what I’m good at.”

And if he could concentrate fully on his role as director of football, that would surely benefit the club.

“The club have been going since 1891 and we’ve never played higher than the Hellenic League,” he continued.

“But we’ve got great facilities and I think we can get into the Southern League.”

And with Bevan’s experience – he scored some 250 goals in 600-odd games at a very decent level – you certainly wouldn’t bet against the club winning promotion into the national pyramid in the years to come.

Bevan is Gloucester born and bred and it’s in the city where he still lives that his footballing journey began.

“I started playing adult football for Longlevens when I was 14,” said the one-time Sir Thomas Rich’s schoolboy. “They were in the Northern Senior League at the time and we had a very good youth team.

“Goalkeeper Matt Gregg went on to play for Torquay and Crystal Palace and Wayne Thomas played for Torquay, Stoke and Burnley among others, while myself, Scott Griffin and Dave Hunt all played in the Southern League.

“We were a very good side. They are my local club but it’s weird because they’re my rivals now as they play in the same division as Fairford.

“But they will always be special to me. My dad was chairman and president when I was a youngster and my brother Ryan, who was a centre-back, captained the first team.”

Their dad Roger will have looked on approvingly when the young Jody was terrorising defences in youth team football.

“I was scoring goals for fun,” he said. “In one season I scored something like 120, it was crazy.

“I used to look up to players like Gary Lineker and Tony Cottee who were goal poachers. I worked hard and was a team player but in those days all I wanted to do was score goals, I grew up with that mentality and I didn’t lose it until my mid-20s.”

And he believes it is something that actually held him back in those early days.

“Soon after I’d joined Weston-super-Mare, Frank Gregan took over as manager and that was a real eye-opener,” admitted Bevan. “He didn’t rate me as a player, he said the only thing I could do was score goals.

“He was the first person who hadn’t rated me and at the time I hated him, but I also learned a lot from him too.

“I worked my socks off and in the end I scored 70 goals in 141 games in three seasons at Weston.

“I was always very lucky in that I always seemed to be in the right place at the right time. That’s something you can’t coach.

“I was always prepared to run and run; I wasn’t the most pacy but what I lacked in natural ability I made up for in effort.”

That wasn’t always enough to earn him a place in the starting line-up at the Southern League club however.

“In my early 20s I was in and out of the side,” said dad-of-two Bevan, who is married to Emily. “If the goals dried up I’d be on the bench but I always got back in the team pretty quickly because we got better results when I started.”

Bevan had joined Weston from Cinderford, a club he joined when he was 17.

“That was when I played my first semi-pro game, it was against Cheltenham Town in the Southern League Cup,” said Bevan.

“I don’t remember much about it, it wasn’t until a few years later that I was told it was a cup game, I’d thought it was a league game!

“I will always be grateful to Tim Harris who was Cinderford’s manager at the time.

“He gave me my opportunity. If he hadn’t I’d have been more than happy playing for Longlevens forever, paying my £3 match-day subs.”

Bevan spent four years at Cinderford during which time he had a brief spell at Trowbridge Town before joining Weston.

“I was 21-22, it was a good move,” he said. “It took me out of the local football community, I had to grow up a bit.

“I played with some good players, former professionals; it was a real privilege.”

Stuart Slater, the ex-West Ham and Celtic winger, and former Chelsea defender David Lee were at the club at a time when Weston were going well.

“We were challenging at the top of the Southern League,” recalled Bevan. “It was Step 3 football.

“In five years I’d gone from parks football to playing with people I used to read about in Shoot magazine!

“I was a regular in my last year at Weston but I always remember I was on the bench for the final game of the season against Gresley.

“I’d had a bit of a falling out with Frank Gregan and he brought me on only for the last five minutes.

“I didn’t get a kick. If he hadn’t have put me on I’d have scored 70 goals in 140 games for the club, I liked the symmetry of that, a goal every other game.”

And while that was a disappointment there was more to come for Bevan in the following pre-season when Gregan told him he wasn’t part of his plans.

“I loved my three years at Weston,” Bevan said. “I loved the supporters and they loved me, but that’s football.

“It was a setback at the time but I have very few regrets in my career.

“It was my sliding doors moment because from Weston I went to Cirencester under Brian Hughes and had a brilliant two years.

“When I left Weston, all I wanted to do was show them what I was all about.

“That first season we finished third in the Southern League and I must have been in the 20s for goals scored.

“I had a spell of six or seven seasons in the 2000s when I was getting 20 goals every year.”

Goalscorers are always in big demand, of course, and when Cinderford came calling Bevan decided to return to the club for a third time.

“Mike Cook became manager, he was a team-mate briefly at Weston,” said Bevan. “I have great respect for him.

“I’d scored 15 goals by Christmas and then Tim Harris, who was by now manager of Gloucester City, called me up.

“Gloucester were struggling at the time but they were always the club I wanted to play for.

“I had been part of their youth set-up and was top scorer both seasons and I was really disappointed not to get taken on into their senior squad when I was 18.

“I’d waited 10 years to play for Gloucester, I realised a dream when I signed for them.”

Ironically, his time at Gloucester was the one time in his career when he struggled. But despite enduring a difficult time the fans still had a song for him.

“Do do do do Jody Bevan,” he laughed, before adding, “I had a career-threatening injury at Gloucester, it kept me out for a year.

“I tore my ACL, I had all the cartilage removed from my left knee.

“My mum was a nurse and the surgeon told her that my knee was shot to pieces.

“He said that I’d need a false knee by the time I was 40 if I carried on playing but my mum said, ’He isn’t going to listen!’.”

And his mum, Diane, was right.

“I said, ’Just get me on the waiting list for that fake knee’,” said Bevan with a laugh.

“I was 28 and I’d worked so hard, I was at Gloucester and I wanted to keep playing for them.

“If someone says I can’t do something I want to prove them wrong, that was my motivation.

“I played another year at Gloucester, predominantly off the bench, but when Tim [Harris] left, I went soon after.”

He headed back to Cinderford for a season, scored his 20 goals, before linking up again with his old boss Brian Hughes at Cirencester.

“That was the season we got promoted to the Premier Division of the Southern League through the play-offs,” said Bevan.

“That was a big achievement but by now I was in my 30s and I was wondering if I could do another season in the Premier Division, I thought I was coming to an end.”

But then Bevan had another sliding doors moment because he was sent on a course by his work, a course that completely changed his outlook on life.

“I suppose today you’d call it a mental health course,” he said. “It helped me understand myself much more.

“The thing that was thrown at me was that I was too nice.

“I applied that to my football so that come game-time I decided I’d put my metaphorical battle armour on, I became very single-minded.

“I went from ’Day-time Jody’ who was married with two kids to ’Football Jody’ who took no prisoners.”

And the change of mindset certainly worked because Bevan reckons he scored 24 goals the following season.

“That was the most rewarding season of my career,” he said. “I’d proved a lot of people wrong.”

But football, as everyone knows, has a habit of kicking you in the teeth just when everything is going swimmingly, and in the second game of the next campaign Bevan sustained a serious injury to his right knee which would keep out for a year.

“Coming back from that at 33-34 was very tough,” admitted Bevan.

“I went to Shortwood as player/coach. It was their first season in the Southern League but I barely played and at the end of the season they let me go which was a bit of a shock.”

Not for the first time Bevan thought his playing days were over.

“I was thinking, ’I’m done’,” he admitted. “I was thinking, ’Who wants a washed up centre-forward who hasn’t played for the best part of 18 months?’.”

Fortunately, Bevan soon got an answer because his old mate Brian Hughes, who was still in charge at Cirencester, was quickly on the phone.

“He told me to come back to Cirencester and put a smile back on my face,” Bevan said. “He said we’ll just see how it goes.”

And as it happened, it went very well.

“Cirencester were in the old Southern League South and West Division,” said Bevan. “We had a good squad, it was small and tight-knit.

“I think I only started four games but I came off the bench in 30.

“I was the Plan B. I’d go on, play as a target man and work all around the box creating opportunities.

“I’d create a bit of a chaos and we’d score.

“It was a special season because I wanted to reach 250 career goals which I did and the icing on the cake was that in the final game of the season at Yate, I came off the bench, we came from behind to win the game and we won the league.

“After that I thought it was the perfect time to stop!”

Except he didn’t stop, of course, not quite.

“I stayed involved loosely on the coaching side for a season,” he explained.

“The following season it was made a bit more formal and I became joint assistant manager with Keith Knight under Brian Hughes.

“I owe Hughsy so much. He’s been amazing for me and I still look up to him.”

But when Hughes was sacked eight games into that season Bevan had a decision to make.

“I had a huge sense of loyalty to Cirencester too,” he said, “so I agreed to be caretaker manager.

“In hindsight that was probably a mistake. I did three games and then I knew I had to leave.”

And that was when he did take a break from a sport that had been a major part of his life for more than three decades.

“I had nine months away and then an opening at Fairford came along,” he said.

“I was on holiday in Menorca when I got a text saying would I be interested in a job at Fairford?

“I found out a bit more about the job and sent off my CV while still sat on my sun lounger!”

Fairford wanted Bevan to work as joint manager alongside the experienced Chris Smith but on the eve of the new campaign Smith stepped down for family reasons.

Bevan took sole charge and he said: “It was our first season back in the Hellenic League Premier Division and it was a massive, massive eye-opener.

“It was hard, the culture around the club wasn’t right although I probably had higher expectations than what was realistic.

“It was a rebuild job but at the time I felt like I was banging my head against a brick wall.

“We needed a result in our last game to stay up but we only had a bare 11 players available.

“I started myself and got the goal in a 1-1 draw and we survived by the skin of our teeth.

“I vowed that would never happen again.”

Jamie Reid came in as his assistant manager and there was indeed an improvement with the club finishing 13th the following season.

And they started the 2019/20 campaign in great style.

“We were flying,” said Bevan. “We were in the top three all season and with 10 or 11 games left I genuinely thought we would get promoted.

“I’d got players coming back from suspension and we were ready for the final push. Then Covid hit.”

The season was declared null and void and while Covid and the resulting lockdowns had a terrible impact on so many people, it also had an adverse affect on Fairford Town Football Club.

“It felt like the rug had been pulled from beneath our feet, it was terrible,” Bevan said. “We’d put so much work into those three years.”

The following season was also massively curtailed due to Covid and Bevan continued: “We played something like nine games in 18 months. Managing a club with little or no football took a lot out of me.

“I carried on for one more season and we finished mid-table but I knew we needed another rebuild.”

And while Bevan was aware of what was required he wasn’t certain he was the manager to take them forward.

“Did I have that ruthless side of my character to take it through and if I did, did I have the energy?” he explained.

“In reality I didn’t have that ruthless side.”

So he stepped aside although he certainly wasn’t ready to walk away from the club he had given so much to.

“I wanted to pull the strings from afar, I wanted to lay foundations for the future,” he said.

“So we came up with the title of director of football. We weren’t sure what it meant but I saw it as someone who oversees the whole football operation and who can help the club to grow.

“In 2017 we were struggling to get one team out. Now we’ve got a reserve team and set up an academy from under-12s through to under-16s.

“This season we’ve set up an under-18 team, we want to create a pathway for the younger players.

“Fairford is in the middle of nowhere between Cirencester and Swindon and it’s important we develop players who have an affinity for the club and have the best interests of the club at heart.”

And having the right culture at a football club has always been very important to Bevan.

“We make sure everyone follows the values of the club,” he explained. “Players have to buy in to what we want to do.

“If they’re playing football purely for money, that’s not the sort of player we want.

“Yes, there is money out there, but our ethos is the more you give, the more you get in return.

“Tim Harris always used to say that it takes 18 months to build a football club but you can destroy one in five minutes.

“The modern footballer is very different. My generation was the last one who played when social media wasn’t like it is today.

“You’ve got to move with the times but you’ve still got to have those core values.”

Jamie Reid is a big driver of those core values, of course, and Reid is someone Bevan has known for a long time.

“Jamie is about 10 years younger than me,” Bevan said. “When I was at Gloucester he was a youngster coming through.

“He’s a Gloucester boy and I took a shine to him. He played for a lot of the clubs I played for but he had bad knee injuries.

“He’s a totally different character to me. I was too nice, I wanted someone who could be ’horrible’ in a positive way, he won’t mind me saying that!

“You need that blend. When I stepped aside as manager I always wanted Jamie to take over, I see so much potential in him.

“He’s becoming a better manager all the time. He’s got good people around him and my job is to give him all the support he needs, I don’t interfere in the team.”

And it’s a partnership that has clearly worked for a number of years now.

But while Bevan is no longer hands-on when it comes to team affairs at Fairford, he does still do some coaching, albeit back in his home city.

“I coach Abbeymead Rovers under-16s,” he said. “My son Rhys plays for them, he’s a keen footballer.

“I’ve coached them all the way through from under-5s. He’s a forward but he’s more of a wide player than me.

“He has to put up with his dad telling him to score more goals!”

Bevan, whose 11-year-old daughter Georgia used to play for Gloucester City’s academy, clearly loves everything and anything to do with football, a love that has never gone away.

“I consider myself very lucky to have played for the clubs I have,” he said.

“I get people in the street stopping me, I’ve no idea who they are, I love it.

“I love football and I love talking about it.”