At Ashton Gate on a bright summer's day, Bristol City Women prepared for the new Women's Super League 2 campaign with a distinctly different identity from clubs elsewhere in English football. The team is now operating as a standalone entity, separated from the men's club, and its new chief executive believes the setup offers a rare chance to build something lasting.
Hannah Buckley, who joined as CEO in June after more than two decades in football including eight years in the WSL, is overseeing the club's transition following last year's takeover by investment group Mercury13. That deal took Bristol City Women out from under the umbrella of Bristol Sport, which also runs the men's football team, the city's rugby union side and its basketball club.
"Our headcount in staff has doubled," Buckley said, describing a summer of rapid change. "We're having to put in place all the back-house services, which historically would have been carried by Bristol Sport. We've made improvements at the training ground, we have upgraded our training pitch, and I think I'd describe it as: 'We're in the marginal gain phase,' reviewing what we have to do [to] supercharge our growth and success."
Mercury13, whose backers include former Manchester United midfielder Juan Mata, also owns FC Como Women in Italy and FC Badalona Women in Spain. For Buckley, who previously helped shape the WSL's design guidelines for women's football venues, the appeal of an ownership group focused solely on the women's game is significant. She noted that clubs tied to men's teams can be exposed to instability through relegation or ownership changes, whereas an independent structure removes that risk. She also pointed to potential benefits from cross-club collaboration and research across the Mercury13 network, calling it an opportunity to prove a women's club can succeed as its own entity.
Head coach Charlotte Healy, who arrived in June 2025 after coaching roles at Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool, Chesterfield and Derby, echoed that sentiment, saying she feels the club genuinely values its women's team. She highlighted the expansion of staff from around seven or eight when she started to a much larger operation now, including new appointments such as a performance wellbeing manager and a head of performance services with WSL experience, aimed at getting the squad ready to compete at the top level.
Buckley confirmed further hires including a commercial director, head of finance, full-time marketing manager and club secretary, underlining the scale of infrastructure being built from scratch. "We now have a commercial director and a head of finance, we now have a full-time marketing manager, a club secretary," she said.
On the playing side, the club has recruited younger talent including Australia defender Alexia Apostolakis, 20, signed from Melbourne City, who said the ambition shown by Healy and the coaching staff to secure promotion influenced her move. Finland forward Lotta Lindström also joined from London City Lionesses, bringing experience from title-winning campaigns, and said she hopes to help instil a winning mentality at the club.
Healy's side finished fourth in WSL2 last season, having scored the most goals in the division, but she believes defensive solidity must improve if the team is to secure promotion this time. Under revised rules, only one side will go up automatically, with second and third meeting in a playoff against the second-bottom WSL club, making automatic promotion tougher this year.
Buckley stressed the need for patience given the club's early stage as an independent business. "There are so many facets to success – building the right culture here, first and foremost, is the important thing, professionalising our environment and setting ourselves up for success," she said. "I'd hope that we achieve top three. I think that would be a fantastic outcome. But I also have to be really measured; we are technically nine months old as a business."
She pointed to the opening fixtures – away at Sunderland, another club under multi-club women's-focused ownership, followed by a home game against promotion-chasing Newcastle – as an early gauge of where the team stands this season.
Based on reporting from Guardian Football.