Gainsborough Trinity Condemns Fake Manager Targeting Non-League Players
In a corner of English football where trust and word of mouth still matter as much as contracts and clauses, Gainsborough Trinity have been forced to deal with a very modern kind of problem.
An impersonator.
A fake manager.
And bogus transfer offers flying around the non-league game.
The Northern Premier League Premier Division side have publicly condemned an individual who has been approaching players across the non-league pyramid, offering deals and wages while falsely claiming to be Gainsborough boss Russ Wilcox.
Club CEO Matt Boles moved quickly to draw a hard line.
He stressed he wanted it “categorically clear” that no such approaches had come from Wilcox or from anyone acting on behalf of Gainsborough Trinity.
“We strongly condemn the actions of the individual responsible,” Boles said via the club’s website. “Impersonating a football manager and making false representations to players is completely unacceptable and has the potential to cause unnecessary disruption and reputational damage to players, managers and clubs.”
The scam only came to light because the non-league network did its job. Managers and officials at other clubs, suspicious of the tone and content of the messages they were seeing, went straight to the source. They contacted Wilcox directly, questioning whether he was actually behind the approaches.
That was the red flag.
According to Boles, many of those in touch did so precisely because they know Wilcox and the standards he works to. The style, the method, the language of the messages didn’t fit. It simply wasn’t how he recruits.
Once the pattern became clear, Gainsborough escalated the matter. The club have reported the incidents to both the Northern Premier League and the Football Association, underlining how seriously they view the situation in a landscape where word spreads fast and reputations can be bruised even faster.
Boles also had a blunt message for the person behind the hoax.
“Enough is enough,” he said. “Stop impersonating our manager, stop wasting the time of players and clubs across the non-league game and, quite frankly, get a life.”
For Trinity, it is an unwelcome distraction at a time when the club has been building something solid under Wilcox. The former Scunthorpe United and York City manager took charge in 2023 and has already steered Gainsborough to notable FA Cup runs, reaching the second round in 2024-25 and the first round the season before.
Wilcox’s name carries weight in these circles. As a player he turned out for Northampton Town, Hull City, Doncaster Rovers, Preston North End and Scunthorpe, before moving into the dugout. That career, that reputation, is exactly what the impersonator tried to exploit.
Non-league football relies heavily on personal relationships, informal conversations and trust between clubs, managers and players. When someone abuses that trust, even from the shadows of a phone screen, it cuts against the core of how this level of the game operates.
Gainsborough have made their stance clear. Their manager will speak for himself, their offers will be real, and anyone trying to trade off the club’s name will be called out.
In a tight-knit football world where everyone eventually finds out who’s who, the question now is simple: how long can an impersonator really hide?
