A post on Facebook by “saffros Sydney” summing up our situation perfectly;
MARINERS HELD HOSTAGE LONG ENOUGH
The Central Coast Mariners, once the little club that could and now the basketcase that has forgotten how, are in the middle of the greatest crisis of their 14 year existence.
- Lost 2-8 to Wellington Phoenix.
- Coach Mike Mulvey given the boot at 1am.
- Stone, motherless last.
- Three coaches sacked in four seasons.
- Wooden spooners in three of the last five seasons, coming 8th on the other two occasions.
And losing not only match after match, season after season, but quality players to other A-League clubs.
Roy O’Donovan, Anthony Caceres, Storm Roux, Trent Buhagiar, Danny De Silva, Lachie Wales, Ross McCormack, Matt Millar. All gone to greener pastures.
And with Millar, CCM were asleep at the wheel when the Jets pounced.
How has it come to this?
Under Lawrie McKinna in 2006-2010, the Mariners played a desperate, physical style that endeared them to local supporters, winning the 2007/8 A-League premiership and losing the 2006 and 2008 Grand Finals. McKinna deserves much off-field credit too, doing plenty of community work to forge a bond between the newly-established Mariners and the region that felt abandoned by every other sporting code.
Following the club’s 2009/10 season, McKinna moved upstairs to become Football and Commercial Manager, paving the way for Graham Arnold to take charge. And, having won the 2011/12 premiership, come second in 2010/11 and 2012/13, and lost the 2011 Grand Final, Mariner fans finally reached their nirvana on April 21, 2013, when a Daniel McBreen-inspired team in yellow won the Grand Final against the Western Sydney Wanderers at Allianz Stadium.
It was a triumph for the little club, a triumph for the beleaguered region and a triumph for the underdog.
This success had a massive effect on the national team. While Ollie Bozanic, Bernie Ibini and Mitchell Duke did not really “go on with it” in Green and Gold, Matt Ryan and Trent Sainsbury are Socceroo everpresents to this day, while the club also developed Socceroos Tom Rogic and Mustafa Amini, and brought Michael Beauchamp and Alex Wilkinson to international standard.
They also gave Australia Patrick Zwaanswijk, the finest defensive import in A-League history.
****
When a fish rots, as the old saying goes, it starts at the head.
Until 2013, the personalities involved in the running of the organisation were John Singleton, Alex Tobin, Ian Kiernan, Lyall Gorman, John McKay, Peter Turnbull and McKinna. Arnold would not be swayed by Scott Barlow to join Sydney FC back in 2012 on the grounds that he had to “finish the job” at the Mariners. The club was in the hands of men of integrity and principle, who gave the club its culture of success against overwhelming odds.
In 2013, Mike Charlesworth increased his stake in the Mariners, becoming the club’s new chairman. Things would never be the same again.
Some say that Charlesworth saved the club, when it was about to go under. I don’t buy that. There were a few staff payment and superannuation problems, but, given how much leeway the FFA would afford Brisbane Roar’s Bakrie Group a few years later, the Mariners weren’t going anywhere.
Instead, Charlesworth embarked on an aggressive restructure - corporate code for “gutting the place to improve the balance sheet”. Employing cut-price management, he did not give successive coaches the investment in players needed to bring glory days back to the Gosford club. Further alienating Mariner supporters, he agitated for a partial move to North Sydney Oval, which not only went down badly with Sydney FC, but with a large section of the loyal fans in yellow. Here was a chairman who had no affinity for the club’s parochial supporter base, effectively sidelining them in a Clive Palmer – style thought bubble.
The football department, once among the best in the country, went to pieces. Charlesworth presided over the reigns of Tony Walmsley and Paul Okon, whose philosophy was to play attractive, passing football, ostensibly to “entertain the fans”. Without the player quality to play that type of football, or passion to fight for the Mariner cause, they were pretty right up until the time they would concede goals and lose matches, which entertained no one.
If the team went from ugly but effective under McKinna to playing good football and successful under Arnold, they became attractive losers in subsequent seasons. And now, they are just losers. Crowds stay away as the club plummets from one crisis to the next.
What to do now?
Mulvey is gone, but the entire rotten structure remains in place. Charlesworth surely must be forced out. That said, it is no easy task to replace a chairman, who, while keeping his purse strings tightly drawn, is still helping fund the club. Charlesworth is our version of Aston Villa’s “Deadly” Doug Ellis.
If the new FFA has any sense, they will have meetings with Charlesworth and urge him to sell. Perhaps a consortium led by John Singleton could rescue the club. Perhaps the Chinese investors who wanted to sink a fortune into the abortion that was “Southern Expansion” could be taken on a tour of the Central Coast. Maybe someone could take them fishing.
Worse yet, the club’s crisis has given ammunition to those who are pushing their own agenda. “If only we had promotion and relegation, this wouldn’t occur!”, they cry.
Really? Were they calling for promotion and relegation when the Mariners defeated Sydney FC 7-2 that fateful Saturday night 7 years ago? After all, Sydney FC were also in the middle of a chairman-induced crisis.
Were they calling for the little club to be banished from the league when they were winning titles, producing a string of Socceroos in the process?
Like climate change proponents, who jump up and down whenever the weather warms up, and deniers, who do likewise when the mercury drops, the promotion/relegation debate is one which the football community must have. But it must not be done in an opportunistic fashion, or indeed, by opportunists.
The Mariners have gone steadily backwards from the moment Charlesworth assumed control six years ago. Until he is forced out, any other measures are temporary ones, akin to rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic.
They need winners, who will recreate a culture of winning - at all levels of the organisation - who will also have an affinity for the region.
The club needs rescuing.
Charlesworth has held them hostage long enough.
I love his new intergrity.
