THE new regime in charge of Torquay United have already made wholesale changes – placing manager Chris Hargreaves and his fellow management staff on gardening leave.
A consortium headed by Dean Edwards completed their takeover on Friday and Hargreaves, alongside assistant Lee Hodges and goalkeeping coach Ken Veysey, was placed on gardening leave after discussions with the new owners.
Hargreaves, who captained the club to Conference promotion in the 2008-09 season, took over as boss in January 2014 but couldn’t stop the club from relegation back into Non-League.
In his first full season in charge, the Gulls finished 13th in Non-League’s top-flight as well as making the FA Trophy semi-finals.
A club statement read: “Torquay United’s first-team coaching staff has been placed on gardening leave by the club.
“Manager Chris Hargreaves, his assistant Lee Hodges and coach Kenny Veysey were unable to reach an agreement with the new consortium after discussions on Friday and Saturday.
“Torquay United changed ownership on Friday and the consortium led by Dean Edwards was forced into a position of offering the coaching staff an opportunity to either take a significant pay cut or be placed on gardening leave.
“In the end, the two sides were unable to agree on the right way forward, both in terms of their individual contracts and the financial constraints that will be placed on the playing side of the club next season.
“Torquay United would like to place on record our sincere gratitude to three legends of the football club and it was very clear that they all wanted to see out their contracts, working to the best of their ability to help us succeed in the future, but it has now been decided that the club will move in a new direction.”
