john relish born 5 october 1953 in huyton lancashire is an english football manager and former player who previously managed conference south side bath city before moving aside to develop a football academy at the club in october 2008 he was also involved in the coaching setup which oversaw wales win in the nonleague four nations tournament in 2006relish began his playing career as a schoolboy with liverpool before joining chester city as an apprentice he left in 1974 to spend the next thirteen years of his career playing for newport county mostly during the most successful period in the clubs long history relish was part of the team that won promotion and the welsh cup and in the subsequent season reached the quarterfinal of the 1981 european cup winners cupin 1986 with newport in the midst of a financial crisis that would see the club eventually forced out of existence relish took over as manager until jimmy mullen took over the role he continued to play for newport until 1987 when he left to join forest green rovers in 1989 he returned to newport this time as playermanager of the reformed team and remained in post until 1993 having led newport to promotion from the hellenic leaguerelish was assistant manager under colin addison at merthyr tydfil during addisons first spell in charge of merthyrhe became assistant manager of westonsupermare under his former newport manager len ashurst and took full charge of the club in 1998 he was sacked in october 2001 after an indifferent start to the seasonhe returned to merthyr tydfil again as assistantmanager but now under andy beattie in june 2002 he became merthyrs manager in 2003 but resigned in may 2005 after the playing budget had been cut for the following seasonhe was appointed as manager of bath city the following month and the following season guided bath to the southern league title and with it promotion to the conference south he moved aside to be replaced by his former assistant adie britten in october 2008 although remained with the club to work with their community and youth development programmehis son lee played football for hereford united newport county and welsh league side caerleon before retiring through injury in december 2007 lee relish was appointed manager of cinderford town