“Once you’re in non-league for a while, it humbles you and you sort of reset yourself.”
Joe Lea’s journey through football hasn’t followed the conventional path.
After spending nine years in Southampton’s academy, Lea was released at 18 before signing his first professional contract with Yeovil Town. His playing career would eventually take him into non-league football with the likes of Gosport Borough, but by the age of just 24, he had made the decision to stop playing altogether.
It wasn’t because he had fallen out of love with football. He had simply found something he loved more.
Alongside his best friend Pat Suraci, Lea turned his attention towards coaching and management. The pair worked together within Gosport Borough’s Centre of Excellence before taking their first steps into senior management with Petersfield Town.
Their first season brought promotion.
That success opened the door to Step 3, where Lea and Suraci have since established themselves as two exciting young managers within the non-league game. After returning to Gosport Borough to manage the first team, the pair later took charge of Poole Town, initially steering the club away from relegation before going on to challenge towards the top end of the division.
In the latest Under the Floodlights interview, Lea joins me to reflect on that journey and the experiences that have shaped his approach to management.
We discuss the realities of growing up inside an elite academy, the moment he realised his Southampton career was coming to an end and the huge adjustment that came with moving from Category One academy football into the professional and non-league games.
As Lea puts it:
“Football finds a way of humbling you very quickly.”
We also explore why he walked away from playing at such a young age, his relationship with Suraci and why the feeling of winning as a manager now means more to him than anything he experienced as a player.
The conversation also provides an insight into what management actually looks like away from the professional game.
From recruitment and rising player budgets to training, dressing-room culture and managing players who may be older or more experienced than you, Lea explains why relationships remain at the centre of everything he and Suraci are trying to build.
“If you don’t have the relationships and you don’t have the respect, then it’s a non-starter.”
We also discuss one of the wider challenges facing ambitious coaches throughout non-league football: accessing higher-level coaching qualifications.
Lea explains his frustrations with the pathway towards the UEFA A Licence and why talented coaches working in senior non-league football can find themselves struggling to access qualifications available to those already working within academy environments.
But despite the sacrifices, long hours and pressures that come with management, there is little doubt about where Lea believes he belongs.
“The most enjoyable times of my life have involved managing a football team.”
At only 28, there is still a long way to go in Lea’s managerial journey. But promotion, play-off challenges and relegation survival have already provided plenty of experiences in a relatively short coaching career.
In this episode of Under the Floodlights, we explore where that journey began, what he has learned along the way and just how far he and Suraci believe they can take it.
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