Stratford Town manager Gavin Hurren leaves for Hednesford Town

STRATFORD Town are looking for a new manager after the club announced that Gavin Hurren had left the club to pursue a ‘new venture’.

The Herald understands that he will be unveiled as Hednesford Town’s new manager later this week with former Bards favourite Lee Vaughan being announced as his assistant.

A 3-0 defeat at AFC Sudbury on Saturday proved to be Hurren’s final game in charge with head coach Paul Davis and Chris Hussey taking charge of the team for Tuesday’s Birmingham Senior Cup tie at home to West Bromwich Albion.

Hurren has been in charge of the Bards for two years, guiding them to the brink of the play-offs last season. The current campaign has been a stop-start affair, exiting both the FA Cup and FA Trophy early on while they have won just six of their 16 games in the Southern League Premier Central to leave them mid-table, albeit just three points shy of the play-off places.

While Hednesford play their football at a level below the Bards, they are well-backed both on the terraces and in the boardroom. Their Northern Premier West Division match at home to City of Liverpool on Saturday attracted more than 1,200 fans and they have a multi-millionaire chairman in Craig Gwilt, a director at Birmingham-based video games company Facepunch Studios.