T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League club, De­fence Force have part­ed ways with coach Lloyd “Sonoltee” An­drews and his as­sis­tant coach­es, for­mer na­tion­al mid­field­er Hut­son 'Bar­ber' Charles and Devin El­cock, with the lat­ter serv­ing as team ad­min­is­tra­tor, ahead of the 2024/2045 do­mes­tic sea­son.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment on the mat­ter De­fence Force team man­ag­er, Sean Al­leyne said he could not con­firm or de­ny that An­drews, Charles and El­cock had been dis­missed from their roles with the team and a press re­lease would be is­sued to­day con­cern­ing the team's tech­ni­cal staff go­ing for­ward.

Asked about the oth­er mem­bers of his coach­ing staff, name­ly Dar­nel Ed­wards (equip­ment man­ag­er), Keron Dorner (med­ical of­fi­cer), Demitri Vil­lo­re­al (phys­io­ther­a­pist), Cur­tis Wal­dron (train­er), and An­dre Marchan (goal­keep­er coach), An­drews said he could not say.

How­ev­er, a source close to the team said the trio have in­deed been re­lieved of their po­si­tions with for­mer na­tion­al mid­field­er and cur­rent na­tion­al Un­der-14 coach Den­sil 'Bleed­er' Theobold, a mem­ber of the So­ca War­riors 2006 FI­FA World Cup squad in Ger­many and Paul Lawrence, tipped to take up the roles.

Ac­cord­ing to the source, Theobold who played 99 times for the na­tion­al se­nior team and scored two goals, got the nod ahead of for­mer T&T coach An­gus Eve, T&T's record ap­pear­ance mak­er with 117 caps. Theobold is al­so the cur­rent coach of Na­pari­ma Col­lege.

A for­mer Queen's Roy­al Col­lege stu­dent, Lawrence, mean­while is not known much lo­cal­ly on the club coach­ing scene but is said to have at­tend­ed coach­ing cours­es at some of the top clubs in Eu­rope in­clu­sive of Barcelona, Chelsea and Stoke City.

He is said to have been un­der con­tract with the De­fence Force team since Jan­u­ary 2024 but has not been in­volved in any of their train­ing ses­sions or match­es to date.

In a new youth­ful coach­ing set up for the "Teteron Men", for­mer T&T and De­fence Force strik­er De­vorn Jorsling, 40, the TT Pro League all-time lead­ing scor­er is al­so ru­moured to be part of the new coach­ing set up along­side his fel­low ex-Mal­ick Sec­ondary col­l­league Theobold and re­cent­ly coached Harlem Strik­ers to the TTPFL Tier II league ti­tle.

Reached for com­ment, An­drews did con­firm his fir­ing by the De­fence Force along with that of Charles, who is cur­rent­ly the head coach of reign­ing cham­pi­ons Fa­ti­ma Col­lege in the Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League Boys Pre­mier Di­vi­sion and El­cock, a for­mer team play­er as well.

In a brief re­ply, An­drews said he was dis­ap­point­ed to be re­moved from his po­si­tion along with Charles and El­cock, but at the same time, he thanked the De­fence Force for giv­ing him the op­por­tu­ni­ty to serve.

Dur­ing their time as key com­po­nents of the "Teteron Men" tech­ni­cal staff, the 61-year-old An­drews led De­fence Force to its fourth and fi­nal T&T Pro League ti­tle in the com­pe­ti­tion’s 20-year his­to­ry in the 2019/2020 cam­paign, his de­but sea­son as coach, and the first for the team since 2012/2013.

The team’s suc­cess in the 2019/2020 sea­son came af­ter the league com­pe­ti­tion was cut short with three match­es left for each club in the 11-team Pro League sea­son due to the world­wide coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) pan­dem­ic.

How­ev­er, a de­ci­sion was then tak­en by the then-com­pe­ti­tion or­gan­is­ers to de­clare the ‘Teteron Men" as league cham­pi­ons with three match­es left to com­plete the sea­son.

On the re­sump­tion of foot­ball lo­cal­ly, An­drews then led De­fence Force to the in­au­gur­al As­cen­sion Foot­ball League Tour­na­ment crown in 2021 and fol­lowed it up with a sec­ond-placed fin­ish to Ter­minix La Hor­quet­ta Rangers, a year lat­er.

An­drews then guid­ed De­fence Force to their record-ex­tend­ing 24th do­mes­tic league ti­tle in 2023 and al­so won the knock­out com­pe­ti­tion to com­plete the dou­ble.

How­ev­er, the Army/Coast-Guard com­bi­na­tion failed to re­tain the league ti­tle this sea­son with a third-placed fin­ish be­hind new cham­pi­ons AC Port-of-Spain and run­ners-up Mis­cel­la­neous Po­lice FC while they won the First Cit­i­zens Cup ear­li­er this year with a 3-1 win over AC Port-of-Spain in the fi­nal.

On the in­ter­na­tion­al stage, De­fence Force con­test­ed the sec­ond-tier Caribbean Foot­ball Union Club Shield com­pe­ti­tion af­ter a third-placed do­mes­tic fin­ish, but the lo­cal team suf­fered a shock loss to Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic’s Club Atleti­co Pan­to­ja 1-0 in their open­ing round-of-16 dou­ble­head­er at the Ergilio Ha­to Sta­di­um in Willem­stad, Cu­raçao.

Last year, De­fence Force FC, two-time CON­CA­CAF Cham­pi­ons Cup win­ners (1978, 1985) and two-time run­ner-up (1987, 1988), con­test­ed the CON­CA­CAF Caribbean Cup and fin­ished third in Group A af­ter draw­ing with AC PoS and Cav­a­lier FC, both with sim­i­lar 1-1 re­sults, while they edged Gold­en Li­on 1-0 and were beat­en 2-0 by Mo­ca FC.