Sutton United Football Club is delighted to confirm the arrival of Kyri Neocleous, who joins Steve Morison’s backroom team as a Goalkeeping Coach.

Having worked with Morison at former club Hornchurch, Neocleous will now reunite with the Head Coach to offer a wealth of experience to the goalkeeper union, following the departure of long-term coach Andy Little to Eastbourne Borough.

Born in Enfield, North London but with Greek Cypriot heritage, Neocleous took on coaching roles very early on from his school days and aside from a brief stint playing in youth teams and in the Spartan South Midlands League, always intended on forging a career in coaching rather than as a player.

He was mentored by Paul Furlong at Queens Park Rangers and Micah Hyde at Dagenham & Redbridge as he began coaching, and Neocleous has also commented on the impact former Tottenham Hotspur youth player, Martin Brennan had on him, as well as current Hull City goalkeeper coach Erbil Bozkurt.

However, Neocleous sided towards a career in coaching, and developed his leadership and training skills during a residential trip from the FA Scholarship Programme to Maine, New England over in the United States of America.

Making the journey across the ocean at the age of 17, having previously worked with the local borough and the Football Association from the age of 15, he was subsequently voted as one of the top three leaders within the category of 16-24 and got to experience coaching philosophies within both a school structure and also an elite football environment.

Neocleous later got the chance to come straight out of his scholarship and take on a management role in the FA Women’s Premier League, returning to his hometown to manage the Ladies Team of local side Enfield Town, and became the youngest manager in the division in the process.

Playing against the likes of West Ham United and Crystal Palace, he guided the Towners to a top five finish in his first season and followed it up by beating Newcastle United in the semi-final of the 2016 FA Women’s Premier League Plate, becoming the first part-time group to reach a national final against Coventry City, where they fell to a 4-1 defeat.

Furthermore, his association with the Towners extended to working as a First Team Goalkeeping Coach for the club’s Men’s side, before serving as a Goalkeeping Coach for Braintree Town, where he established a reputation for his focus on developing young goalkeepers and his ability to build a positive team environment across a three-year spell with the Iron.

The 32-year old then joined the coaching staff at Hornchurch where he spent the 2023/24 campaign alongside Morison until the latter’s departure for Sutton midway through the season, and Neocleous exits Upminster himself following a title-winning campaign in the Isthmian Premier Division and a ninth place finish in the National League South.

After securing a reunion with Neocleous, Morison said:

“We’re disappointed to see Andy [Little] leave after being such a good servant for the football club but, as we know, with football and how it works, we wish him all the best at Eastbourne.”

“What it has done is give me the opportunity to bring Kyri to the club who is an awesome human being and a very good goalkeeper coach, and will bring lots of qualities that will help the goalkeepers improve and us as a team and staff.

We’re really pleased to have him on board and I can’t wait to see him get to work on the training ground.”

Neocleous added:

“I’d like to thank Hornchurch Chairman, Alex Sharp, and Director Colin McBride for their support over the past two seasons.

I am delighted to be joining Sutton United and to be working with Steve Morison again. There is a clear identity of how we want to work and I am excited about the project in hand and getting started.”

Welcome to Sutton, Kyri!