FOR GOSPORT Borough pair Pat Suraci and Joe Lea, football is definitely more than what happens with the first team on a Saturday afternoon.
The young midfielders also lead the Southern Premier League South club’s centre of excellence as they try to nurture players to play alongside them.
Suraci, 22, and Lea, 23, have known each other since they were young in Southampton’s renowned academy.
They took on Boro’s U18s team in 2018 alongside their playing duties and have now helped grow that to an U23 side, a college programme in conjunction with St Vincent College, Gosport, and soon they will have teams from U9s up to U16s.
“It’s something we take a lot of pride in and developing young players in the club,” Suraci told The NLP.
“The idea is to bring players through the club rather than have to bring in players from all sorts of areas – can we produce our own? Of course it is going to be a long-term project. But as we get more experience and develop ourselves as coaches, we can hopefully develop young players to Southern Premier League level and hopefully further than that.”
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