Joe Lea and Pat Suraci have been named joint managers of Havant & Waterlooville, days after leaving Southern League Premier South rivals Poole Town.
The pair resigned at Poole on Monday evening. Two days later the Dolphins won 3-1 at Gosport and moved to the top of the table. Havant are currently 21st, with one league win from nine matches. The move takes the duo from a side challenging for promotion to one near the foot of the division.
Lea, who turns 29 in December, started out in Southampton’s academy. After leaving the Saints he moved to League Two side Yeovil Town. Spells followed at Dorchester Town, on loan in the autumn of 2016, and then Gosport Borough from January 2018.
He stopped playing at a young age. While at Petersfield Town in January 2023, he announced his retirement to concentrate fully on coaching.
Suraci’s early career took him abroad. As an 18-year-old he joined Belgian second-tier club Lommel United before returning to play on the south coast. At Gosport he was named player of the season during a campaign spent near the bottom of the table. In another season he scored 12 goals and provided 14 assists in Premier Division South.
The two were teammates at Gosport. Alongside their management roles, both have coaching experience at youth level. They ran Gosport’s academy and held development positions at Chelsea and AFC Bournemouth.
Lea and Suraci took their first managerial job together at Petersfield in the summer of 2022. In their first season they won promotion from Wessex League Division One via the play-offs and reached the Wessex League Cup final, which they lost 4-2 to Baffins.
They moved back to Gosport in 2023. The club had finished 17th the previous season. Under Lea and Suraci they finished fourth and reached the play-off semi-finals, where they were beaten by Salisbury.
In January 2025 they moved to Poole. At the time, the Dolphins had taken three points from their last six games and sat four points above the relegation places. Results did not improve immediately. A defeat at Chertsey Town extended their winless league run to nine games, and Suraci acknowledged publicly that the side were in a relegation battle.
Form picked up later in the season, and Poole finished 14th. In 2025/26, their first full season in charge, Poole reached the play-offs and lost in the semi-final at Gloucester City. When the pair stepped down this week, Poole were two points off first place.
Havant appointed the duo after a disappointing opening to the season. Aaron Martin was dismissed following a 2-1 defeat at Bracknell Town on 19 September, the club’s sixth loss in eight league games. Martin had been in charge for less than a year, having replaced Shaun North, who left in November 2025.
Shaun Gale has been in interim charge since then. Under him the Hawks went out of the FA Trophy with a 3-2 home defeat to Taunton Town, then drew 1-1 with Hanwell Town in the league.
The club’s resources make the position more notable. Havant play at Westleigh Park, which holds 5,300. They have spent most of their history at Step 2, including a season in the National League in 2018/19. They dropped into the Southern League after relegation from the National League South in 2023/24 and finished 10th last season.
In their first comments as Hawks managers, Lea and Suraci said they saw the club as one that had not been reaching its potential. They said its size was a big part of why the job appealed to them.
Gale will take the team for Saturday’s league game at Wimborne Town. Lea and Suraci’s first match in charge is at home to Basingstoke Town on Tuesday.
Two fixtures later in the autumn will carry extra interest. Havant travel to Gosport on 21 November and to Poole a week later.
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