gather with tidyr: position must be between 0 and n error

The question is marked as solved, but I think it may be useful to post my answer. The way David Arenburg does is right. You need exact backticks for it to work. If you use the quotation marks as @uncool in the comments did, you get the same error like him:

Error: All select() inputs must resolve to integer column positions.
The following do not:
*  c("2004":"2009", "2012")

For the German keyboard users: If you don't know how to type backtick (like me a few minutes ago):

"Shift + the key on the right side of ß" and, after that, "spacebar".

x.row10  %>% gather(Year, Val, c(2:8))