Gloucester Rugby aiming to replicate French giants Toulouse
After a season to forget can Gloucester Rugby really become the UK's answer to Toulouse? It's new coaching team definitely think it could be the way to go.
Dear reader,
A big read all about how one of Gloucestershire’s best-loved businesses, Gloucester Rugby, hopes to reshape itself for the seasons ahead after a torrid 2025/2026 - so far.
Raikes was lucky enough to be allowed to sit in on the latest gathering of the Gloucester Rugby Business Club, sponsored by Willans LLP solicitors, to hear how it hopes to make good after one of its worst seasons in recent history.
Last Friday’s crushing defeat against Bristol Bears was still fresh in everyone’s mind, so it was never going to be anything but a robust conversation.
For a long time sport and business seem to like drawing from one another. If ever there was an example of how a business should face up to its customers and explain itself, this could have been it.
If you’re a fan, hopefully you’ll find something in it to make you feel a little better.
Have a great weekend.
Best regards,
Editor | 07956 926061 | LinkedIn: Andrew Merrell | andrew.merrell@raikesjournal.co.uk
Briefing notes…
👨💼 Rob Case has been appointed as managing partner of the Cheltenham-based accountants and business advisers Randall & Payne. Case succeeds Tim Watkins, who steps aside after a decade of leadership. The new managing partner began his journey as a trainee straight from school more than 20 years ago and has developed extensive experience across taxation advisory work, leadership and strategic development. “Our focus will be on investing in our team, improving how we work and ensuring we remain a trusted adviser to ambitious businesses and individuals,” said Case.
🏗️ Gloucester-headquartered Marky Building Services has won the contract to create a £3 million dental school and treatment hub, set to open in the heart of Gloucester. The facility, announced by Raikes last year but now officially agreed between the University of Gloucestershire and NHS Gloucestershire ICB, will be at the university’s City Campus and called the Three Counties Dental School. It’s expected to be operational from 2027.
🏗️ Gloucestershire-based manufacturer Batten & Allen has announced a £500,000 investment in the latest high-speed press technology. The Cirencester-based firm, a specialist in stamping, plating and assembly of high precision parts, has spent the cash on a new BSTA 280-88-B3 machine and it’s already lined up a a major Mexican export order to produce lead frames used in the development of AI chip sets to test out the investment.
🏗️ It looks like spades can finally go in the ground on land to the West of GCHQ to create a development we’re told “will play an important role in strengthening the UK’s leadership in cyber, AI and advanced technologies”. In fact, the publicity says it will become “a globally significant cluster for innovation, driving collaboration and investment from across the world”.
We’re talking about the much-trumpeted Golden Valley Development, of course, the Cheltenham Borough Council scheme - a business park and houses - being brought to life by HBD, part of Henry Boot. The scheme has now officially won ‘reserved matters planning’. Contractor Bowmer + Kirkland was appointed to deliver the project’s first phase, which received resolution to grant outline planning consent in July 2025.
Now, after a long wait, work is expected to start on phase one this year - a 160,000 sq ft building which will help the development “leverage the region’s established strengths in security technology, supporting the clustering of expertise across fast-growing sectors such as cyber, AI and secure communications, while creating an environment capable of attracting global businesses, talent and investment”.
Phase one also includes a transport hub called ROUTER, which will house parking for 453 cars, cycle and e-bike charging facilities.
Things to do this weekend…
Today (Friday)
🎭 Kara Tointon stars in the Royal Shakespeare Company production The Constant Wife, by Laura Wade, based on the comedy by W.Somerset Maugham, directed by Tamara Harvey. From 7.30pm tonight and Saturday. More here.
Saturday:
⚽ Gloucester City FC play Walton & Hersham at home. KO 3pm.
⚽ Cheltenham Town FC play Bristol Rovers at home. KO 3pm.
⚽ Forest Green Rovers FC play Morecambe at home. KO 12.30pm.
Sunday:
🏉 Gloucester Rugby take on Exeter at home. KO 3.30.
Worth knowing too…
💻 Food and drink producers, suppliers, farming and hospitality businesses are being summoned to a meeting at Cheltenham’s Hub8 MX on Thursday 21 May staged by Food For Thought CIC. Lorrin White, the former CEO of Bamboo Technology now head of marketing and development at HCR Law, will give a masterclass on how to use Microsoft 365, how to reclaim your time, increase revenue and efficiency. Subsidised by Made in Gloucestershire, The Growth Hub and Gloucestershire County Council. From 10am till noon. Tickets are £10. More here.
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Gloucester Rugby aiming to replicate French giants Toulouse
After this season you might expect Gloucester Rugby to fall back on what it once knew best – a gritty, physical, forward-dominated style. But French superclub Toulouse is the favoured model.
By Andrew Merrell.
It has been said many times about the lot of the sports fan that “it’s not the despair, it’s the hope that kills you”.
But at last Friday’s Gallagher Premiership match against Bristol Bears (53-12 to Bristol) hope also died for many Gloucester fans.
It’s hard to walk away from the thing you love though and Gloucester Rugby Business Club, sponsored by Willans LLP solicitors, saw a near full house at 8am on Thursday morning with members unable to resist the chance to hear from new backroom recruits Chris Boyd and Rob Burgess.
Sport can be prone to overanalysing itself, but rugby’s best leadership tends to enjoy leaning into robust conversations and Boyd and Burgess were frank, honest and unflinching.
It was a session chaired by ex-player now business development director at Emerge Digital, Mark Atkinson, in which the audience, some still struggling with Friday’s result, pulled no punches either.
“Friday night’s game was awful,” said Boyd, the club’s new technical director, reading the mood in the room.
“It didn’t look good wherever you stood. When your team loses and you think they have given everything they can, that’s one thing.
“On Friday I didn’t think they gave all they could give. That is unacceptable. That’s not good enough for me.”
The New Zealander, whose coaching CV includes a recent successful stint as director of rugby at Northampton Saints, was joined by the club’s new general manager, Rob Burgess.
Their frankness was matched by questions from the floor too, like ‘why doesn’t the club just come clean, be honest with fans and admit that winning the Premiership is not going to happen soon and that finishing near the foot of the table is the more realistic target?’.
