FORMER promotion-winning Plymouth Argyle manager Paul Sturrock is aiming to launch a new football team this summer, writes Nigel Walrond.

The charismatic Scotsman is keen to create a side in the south east Cornwall village of Menheniot, which has been without a football team for a number of years.

The 64-year-old former Scotland international striker, affectionately known as Luggy, whose last taste of football management saw him have a short spell at Yeovil Town in 2015 when they were still in the Football League, initially planned to set up a men’s team, which he admits “would have been a lot of fun”, but he has now decided to create a team primarily for 16 to 21-year-olds with the aim of developing young players so they can go on and play the game at a higher level.

Liskeard Athletic are giving him the use of Lux Park to stage a trial match next month, on a date still to be confirmed.

The aim is to play in the Duchy League, which kicks off in the first week in September, and he is currently going through the process of applying to join the league.

They will be known as Menheniot Pilgrims, and the plan is to have tangerine and green as their home shirt colours, with green, black and white as their away strip – a harp back to his time at Dundee United and Argyle, where he had two spells in management.

Sturrock, who shortly before the first lockdown was scouting for Scottish Premiership side Dundee United, and was also doing some coaching with their players, told the Cornish Times: “The idea for this has come from sitting in the house for a year and a half.

“I just need to get out, I miss the coaching and the team training, and I miss all the banter.

“I want to create an under-21 team and give something back to the game. That is not to say I won’t bring a couple of older boys in to help out, but it is a development team I am trying to grow.

“The whole idea is to improve the individual player so they can go on and play at a higher level. I want to see people maybe become professionals, or certainly reach the level that Plymouth Parkway play at in the Southern League.

“We’d have to start in the second division of the Duchy League and then aim to work our way up the leagues.”

Getting a team together is just a small part of it for Sturrock, who says he is “excited” by the ambitious project he is undertaking.

“We have got a pitch in the village (next to the primary school and village hall), where the goalposts are a bit crazy, and there is a slope on one side, but this is amateur football! But at the moment, I have no players, no kit, no committee and currently have no league, so there is lots to do,” he admitted.

“Liskeard have very generously given me the loan of their pitch for one Sunday to do a trial game.”

He is also on the look- out for local businesses who are willing to sponsor the team and help with the costs of setting up the club.

If you are interested, contact the Cornish Times at [email protected] and the paper will pass your details on to Paul.