WINCHESTER City's FA Vase-winning manager Neil Hards is back in business with Cirencester Town.

After a year's break from football, the 44-year-old has been tasked with transforming the fortunes of the Gloucestershire outfit who finished just one place above the Southern Premier drop zone last season.

Former goalkeeper Hards, who memorably guided City to a 2-0 victory over AFC Sudbury in the 2004 FA Vase final at Birmingham, was invited to apply for the post by Cirencester chairman Steve Abbley, who played with him at Cheltenham Town during the 1980s.

Hards replaces another of his ex-Cheltenham teammates, Brian Hughes, who resigned last month after four and a half seasons with the Centurians.

Cirencester is quite a trek for Hards from his Portsmouth home, but the self-employed painter and decorator laughed: "I used to travel to Cheltenham from Portsmouth and that was in the days of ponies and traps!

"Cirencester's a bit closer and I can do it in one hour and 20 minutes. It's only 45 minutes further on than Winchester."

Having had his promotion path blocked by the ground-graders following Winchester's memorable Vase/Wessex League/League Cup treble-winning season of 2003/4, Hards soldiered on for another year only to finish runners-up to Lymington & New Milton and miss out again.

Now he finds himself two rungs above the Wessex with Cirencester and with a set-up that most clubs in this area could only dream about.

"The facilities are some of best in non-League," he said. "They've got a new stadium, which has only been open three years, the pitch is like a bowling green and they've just invested £750,000 on an indoor arena."

Cirencester also boast Academy status and their production line of talent includes Wayne Turk, Scott Bartlett and Kevin Sawyer three members of Salisbury City's Southern Premier championship side.

Martin Blackler, a former Salisbury player, is staying on as assistant manager. "Martin's another one I played with at Cheltenham," said Hards. "I'm happy to work with him. I will need someone who lives locally who can give me information on the players."

Hards, though, does not rule out taking some Hampshire-based players with him and said: "One of the reasons Cirencester chose me ahead of the local candidates was so they could branch out and bring in one or two new faces from another area."

Top priority is a new goalkeeper and Hards could well turn to his son, Alex, who learned his trade at Portsmouth and played for Newport IoW last term.