PARENTS of pupils at the Wiltshire School of Gymnastics, are furious after the top boys' coach was made redundant out of the blue on Monday.

Levente Molnar-Schondorfer, boys' coach for two years, must now find a new job before his work visa runs out on January 4 or go back home to Romania with his wife and two young children.

The Melksham gym has around 1,000 members and has launched the career of many young gymnasts including Sam Bayley, 15, who has been selected to represent Great Britain in the 2004 Olympics.

The gym is a charity and run by a board of trustees who called a meeting with parents on Monday evening, after which trustees Julian Lander and Angie Baxter resigned.

Mr Lander said: "I resigned because I thought the way in which this was managed was morally wrong. There are national regulations in place to ensure that men are trained in gymnastics to the same standard as women and by making this coach redundant we could be seen to be favouring the girls.

"The justification we were given by the other trustees for making him redundant was financial.

"Any charity has to be open with its constitution and finances and I have not been allowed to look at details of the finances.

"I wanted to look at them to assure myself that making Levente redundant was justified."

Two part-time coaches will replace Mr Molnar-Schondorfer on Monday.

Debbie Reed's son, Ewan, 10, trains six times a week at the WSG complex in Lysander Road.

Mrs Reed said: "The boys love Levente. He spends so much time with our children that we have complete faith in him and he gets the best out of them. The meeting on Monday was a disgrace and the poor man was told in a side cupboard in the gym that he was being made redundant before he had to face the parents and the kids."

Raf Weaver's son, Jacob, nine, goes to classes at least four times a week. She said: "The way they have treated the coach is abominable.

"The trustees asked him to come over from Romania with his family a few years ago and he has done a brilliant job and this is how they treat him."

Trustee Colin Harrison said he regretted the decision to make the coach redundant but they had to balance the books.

He said: "We have got to make some savings and we will always promise to run the club for everyone, not just for the girls.We put together a package which we thought would give Levente enough time to find another job before his visa runs out.

"We admit our communication has not been the best and this is not a nice decision to make but at the end of the day we are all unpaid and we do our jobs for the good of gymnastics."