GARY POWELL could not have dreamt that Tytherington Rocks would be 19 points clear at the top of the table in February when he took his first job in management at the Hellenic Division One West club last summer before turning 30.

While most managers his age have been forced to retire early from their playing careers, former Bristol Rovers defender Powell just wanted the chance to put his own stamp on a team, and he is already making a name for himself.

He has transformed the fortunes of Tytherington in his short spell at the helm and they only need four wins from their remaining seven games to clinch the title.

“I played football for 15 years and I got to a point where I wanted to put my own stamp on it instead of playing the way other people want you to play,” said Powell.

“I’m still registered as a player but I’m more comfortable as a manager.

“I’ve coached for ten to 15 years so I’ve got lots of experience.”

Powell was a player-coach at Bitton last season, but he jumped at the chance to become his own man at Tytherington when the opportunity came up.

“I always heard good things about Tytherington,” he said.

“I played against them at Yate when they brought 200 down for the game.

“They’re a nice friendly club, it’s a good place to start because it’s important to get a club with good support and I was chuffed to get the job.”

Tytherington have been given planning permission to build floodlights at the Hardwicke Playing Fields and are waiting to be given the green light by their trustees to make the necessary improvements that would allow them to play in the Hellenic Premier Division.

Powell clearly has ambitions to manage at a higher level and he is hoping to achieve that with Tytherington.

“I want to be the best I can,” he said.

“I want to take Tytherington as far as I can and if we get promoted, as a group it’s such a good place to be – the players and the staff get on so well – it would be a shame to break it up.”

Tytherington are unbeaten in 20 games, winning 17 of them, and have hit 36 goals in their last six games, but Powell is not taking his eye off the ball.

He said: “We are confident but we don’t want to cross that fine line and pick up bad results through arrogance.

“We’ve been lucky with the players we’ve managed to attract.

“At the same time there are three or four players from last year that have done really well like Marc Hughes, Justin Bishop and Tom Sheppard.

“We play great stuff and at times we’ve been awesome.

“Justin Bishop and Toby Colbourne have played well, Alex Chapman stepped forward and has been fantastic in recent weeks and we picked up Joe White from Odd Down, so we’re in a very strong position with four very good strikers in a very strong squad.”

Tytherington haven’t played since Saturday, January 21 as they had a week off before freezing weather caused their last two games to be postponed, but they hope to get back in action with a trip to Brimscombe and Thrupp on Saturday.