With their £1.4m ground ruined and a new season about to start, Gloucester entered into a groundshare deal for the 2007-08 campaign with Forest Green Rovers, 16 miles away in Nailsworth.
They then spent two seasons playing in Cirencester – 23 miles away – where they won promotion to the sixth tier of English football in 2009 – before sharing with Cheltenham Town, 11 miles away from Gloucester, between 2011 and 2017.
The Tigers moved out of the county for the first time to play at Evesham United, where they are now in their third season.
Last Saturday, they attracted a gate of 284 against Guiseley – about 100 down on their average crowd in their final season at Meadow Park before the floods.
“We’re very grateful to Evesham for the groundshare, but it’s far from home,” added Petheram, who joined Gloucester’s board in September 2018.
“We can’t leave anything there.
“The kit man literally takes the kit home. He stores it at his house because he’s got nowhere else to put it. We have about 100 footballs belonging to the club and they all end up in a garden shed.
“All the cones, bibs and mannequins we use for training get put in a car and taken to a shed.
“Our physio takes the treatment table home with her along with all the other medical equipment. She puts it in her hall because there is nowhere else to store it.
“We get no bar takings, no food revenue. We can’t sell advertising boards because they are not ours to sell, we can’t do hospitality because there isn’t any. We only just cover our rent bill in turnstile receipts.”
Gloucester owner McGurk and Petheram, who both run companies involved in the construction industry, provide income to keep the club afloat.
They also pay for overnight accommodation for the team before long away matches, something which has become more frequent since the club switched from National League South to National League North in the summer, because of the geographical spread of teams in non-league’s regional divisions.
In October alone, Gloucester face round trips totalling about 1,500 miles, with league matches at Gateshead and Spennymoor, in addition to the cup tie at Whitby.