‘They have taken a risk – we owe it to Petersfield to try and take them as far as we can’ – former Gosport Borough midfielder Joe Lea on new managerial challenge

The Portsmouth-born midfielder, who spent nine years with the Southampton Academy, took over as Petersfield Town joint-manager in April alongside his Gosport Borough colleague Pat Suraci.

The pair have both currently put playing on the back burner to prioritise management and coaching.

This time last year, Lea and Suraci were preparing to play for Gosport in the Southern League Premier South - three tiers above where Petersfield find themselves, Division 1 of the Wessex.

Lea, though, told boss Shaun Gale in the autumn that he was stepping back from playing due to his off-field coaching workload. Suraci’s season was ended by a serious knee injury around the same time.

Despite leaving Gosport as players, both Lea and Suraci will continue to oversee Borough’s Centre of Excellence. They will also continue to work part-time in the AFC Bournemouth academy - Lea coaching the under-12s and Suraci the assistant at under-15 level.

‘Myself and Pat have been coaching the under-23s and under-18s at Gosport for three years,’ said Lea. ‘We’d got to a stage where we realised we needed to get experience of managing in men’s football.

‘We spoke to Shaun Gale and the chairman (Iain McInnes) about it. Then Gosport played Petersfield in a Portsmouth Cup tie shortly after and they started talking to Mark Summerhill (Petersfield manager), and it went from there.

‘It all married up quite nicely really.

‘Gosport have some good youngsters who are ready for men’s football, and we were looking for a local club to start a relationship with.’

He added: ‘We see managing and coaching is our future, that’s where we see ourselves in years to come.

‘We’re giving ourselves a head start, in a way. In three years time we’ll be 27 with hopefully three or four more years experience than others around our age. That’s how we’re looking at it.

‘We’d like to take Petersfield as far as we can, first and foremost.

‘They have taken a risk on two 24-year-olds with no managerial experience in men’s football, and we’re very grateful for showing some belief in us. We owe it to Petersfield to try and take them as far as we can.

‘It was a tough decision to make (stop playing), but that’s not to say we’ll never play again - myself and Pat have both signed on as players in case we’re ever needed.’

Lea and Suraci have recruited a handful of their former Gosport under-23 squad on Petersfield Wessex forms - Finn Walsh-Smith, Dylan Holgate, Josh Rose, Mino Djaura, Matt Dougan and Marcos Pavlou.

In addition, their former Gosport colleagues Zak Sharp and Connor Hoare were both sweet-talked over from AFC Portchester. ‘They could both play leagues higher, but they believe in what we want to do,’ said Lea.

Sharp and Aaron Haggard will take charge of Gosport’s under-23s in 2022/23, while George Davis and Mark Ayre will manage the club’s under-18s. Lea and Suraci were in charge of both teams last season.

Back at Love Lane, the new Rams bosses were keen to keep Ryan Kennedy and Charlie Merritt, but both have signed for Wessex Premier clubs - Baffins and Horndean respectively.

As for Summerhill, he has taken on a Head of Football position. ‘He’s got a massive role to play,’ explained Lea. ‘His experience has been very valuable.

‘Myself and Pat took his word on a lot of things, and he’s been right about everything.

‘Mark did a good job of stabilising the club when it was in freefall.’

Back-to-back Wessex titles catapulted Petersfield into the Southern League in 2015/16. They lasted two seasons at step 4 level before relegation back to the Wessex, whereupon they finished bottom of the Premier. In 84 league games in 2016/17 and 2017/18, the Rams lost 71 of them.

Since then, under Summerhill, they have finished 15th and 12th in the two completed seasons. Now, with Lea and Suraci at the helm, they are looking upwards once again.

‘We don’t want to talk about promotion,’ said Lea. ‘We’ve only had the players for three weeks. It’s going to take some time to get the message across how we want to play.

‘We obviously want to go up, but it might not be realistic this coming season.’