CALLINGTON Town have altered their managerial structure across both men’s teams for the upcoming season.

Last year’s first team boss Dean Southcott has decided to take on the role of the development side, who will once again be at Step Seven in the St Piran League Premier Division East, which means manager Simon Riddle and head coach Jay Martin will take on the joint running of the first team.

They will be joined by Paul Sanders, who steps up from the reserves and will help look after the goalkeepers, while Southcott will also be on the bench when fixtures don’t clash.

Southcott’s coaching set-up once again includes Jordan Mason who is still recovering from knee surgery, while former St Dominic manager Pete Jonas has come on board to add his expertise.

Riddle feels the moves will benefit the club as a whole, saying: “With Dean taking the reins of the Development side, and the three of us already working closely together, this should also help the transition of players stepping up into the first team as well as some older faces returning along with some new to their squad in hopefully having a strong season.

“Our main aim as a first team since the of last season was to try and keep as many of last year’s squad together as possible after they achieved the club’s highest-ever finish and reached our first Step Six cup final.

“As expected, there have been offers from elsewhere for some of the players off the back of fine season’s, but our philosophy has very much been about having a group that buys in together — a group of mates who want to push the club as high as possible along with us still providing opportunities for the youngsters coming through to be able to play Step Six football. Pleasingly, it looks like we’ve been successful in keeping that group together.

“That in turn has meant we haven’t been out looking for lots of new players. We identified a few who fit the same criteria and who we feel are a good fit in terms of improving the squad and allowing us to get the best out of them. We’ve had some new faces in training and, once things are confirmed on that front, they will be announced accordingly.”

Callington are back in the swing of things ahead of their league opener at home to neighbours Dobwalls on Saturday, August 8.

Riddle continued: “Numbers for the double sessions have been superb, as has the effort. A big focus for us has been fitness, as we know we need to be fitter as a group, and the friendlies will also give us the chance to work on how we want to set up and play this season.”

“We start with two Step Five sides for our friendlies — Ivybridge away this Saturday (July 11) and Liskeard at home next Tuesday (July 14) — two tough tests to get things under way on the pitch.”

Riddle has also announced his first addition of the summer, defender Sam Hill from Holsworthy.

He added: “I’m delighted Sam has joined, we had one or two areas we knew we probably needed to strengthen to help give us more depth and Sam fits the bill perfectly. He’s extremely versatile and comes with over a decade of experience of this league and playing primarily for teams towards the top end, so he was certainly someone we didn’t want to miss out on when the chance came.

“He’s fitted straight in, trained well and we look forward to him being a great asset for the season ahead.”