gemkayem
Well-Known Member
Dear Mariners Community,
It has been several months since my last message to you, and many things have changed at the club in the meantime, so the timing is right for another update.
Liberty A-League Women
Firstly, I hope you are all enjoying having a Liberty A-League Women team back on the coast. How exciting was the game last Sunday versus a very good Brisbane outfit? Incredible! Although we came away with one point instead of three, every person watching that game came away with a ‘win’ in their ‘entertainment value’ column. Thank you to all 3,500 that came along and supported the team live. To those that didn’t, you missed out big time! I hope you make it there this Saturday night to see for yourself how good our girls are going.
Apart from a nervous first half of our very first game, the squad’s performance, led by Emily Husband and her support crew, has been outstanding. When you consider that some of our best players like Kyah Simon and Casey Dumont are yet to take the pitch, we definitely look like being competitive in our first season back!
Thank you
On another positive note, I’d like to say a sincere and heartfelt ‘thank you’ to all the members and fans that have shared their well wishes and supportive comments to myself and others at the club recently, despite our tough start to the season. It means a lot and we deeply appreciate that many people still remember we delivered a Championship just six months ago. Although we are facing some challenges right now, we are focused on making the top six, to once again give us a shot at doing the seemingly impossible.
Financial Update
Throughout the offseason we proactively made significant changes to the business side of the club, and I’m very pleased to say that we’re in the best commercial position since this club's inception. We still have a long way to go to achieve financial sustainability though, so the entire corporate team are still working hard every day to grow our fanbase and unlock more partnerships to move us towards a secure long-term future.
Unfortunately, despite spending a substantial sum on advisors, retainers and marketing, so far I have not been able to find an investor to join me to form a long-term partnership committed to youth development and keeping the club on the coast. I haven’t given up hope and in fact we are now taking a different approach, trying to find several smaller investors to form an ‘ownership group’ to share the cost while we build the Mariners into a self-sustaining business model. In the meantime, please continue your efforts to get as many fans supporting our club as you can. Every single membership sold helps massively. It helps financially, but just as importantly, it shows potential investors that the people of the Central Coast want their football team to remain on the coast!
Setting the Record Straight
I’d like to address some of the commentary and feedback I’ve heard circulating the club in relation to our Isuzu UTE A-Leagues team’s start to the season. Here are some facts:
- We were obviously keen to keep Nick Montgomery for one more season and offered him a very significant increase in remuneration for the 23/24 financial year. Despite this, in the end Nick decided it was time to challenge himself in Europe. We respect his decision and sincerely wish him well.
- Last season’s Championship was not the result of a ‘one-year successful sprint’. It took four years of hard work by Monty and Serg both in the academy space and then in the first team environment to win the Championship. There were many others like Anton Tagliaferro and Shaun Mielekamp who worked tirelessly behind the scenes over that four-year period that also contributed greatly to the Championship.
Championships are not delivered in one season. Australian legend Mark Viduka played 17 seasons of club football and won only four Championships. That doesn’t mean the other 13 seasons were a waste, or were poor, or were necessarily worthy of criticism, it just means that his team didn’t have all the pieces they needed to be the best in those years.
- We did not want to lose as many players as we did in the off-season. In particular, I hoped to keep McGarry, Nkololo and Silvera (if you ask Sammy how many times I urged him to stay, he’ll tell you it was a lot!). The money we actually receive in the club’s pocket from these transfers after everyone takes their cut is nowhere near what people are reporting, and specifically in the case of these players, I would take them wearing our shirt for one more season over the money received every day of the week.
- In Silvera, Cummings and Nkololo we lost 36 goals and 14 assists a season when they left the club. Candidly, we haven’t managed to replace this, yet. But people have to understand that some of our replacements have not been playing regular football for the last two years, so they need to be given time to find the form we all know they are capable of. I think we all saw glimpses of what Alou will bring to the club long term from his performance against Brisbane.
- Mark Jackson was appointed by a panel of myself, Matt Simon and Anton Tagliaferro. We were unanimous in our decision, which was based on the merits of his playing career, his success working on a daily basis with coaches like Marcelo Bielsa and Jesse Marsch, and most importantly, his exceptional pedigree of youth development over the seven years he was at Leeds United. For example, Crysencio Summerville, Sam Greenwood and England u/21 International Charlie Cresswell are just three out of over 25 players currently playing professionally in the UK to have come out of Jacko’s program! He is the hardest working coach Matt Simon has ever encountered. We are fully confident in our decision, Mark just needs time to mould a squad that will fit his playing demands and style.
- Our poor start this season did not coincide with the arrival of the current coaching staff. We in fact did not beat any A-Leagues clubs in preseason, even before the previous coaching team left. Championship ‘hangover’ associated with a young squad, coupled with the loss of so many players, are in my view the reasons for our poor start, not the coaching changes.
- Excluding the performance against Macarthur FC, we have been competitive this season before injuries and red cards have come into play. Playing in Asia and Australia simultaneously is tough, especially at the beginning. The history of Australian teams competing in Asia shows that Aussie clubs, especially those with young teams, do not perform well in both competitions in the first year. Our squad is still learning to deal with the demands of the increased workload. To give you an example of what you don’t see, last Wednesday’s conditions in Bali were described by Vuka as the toughest he has encountered in his twenty-year career. Following that match, the team didn’t arrive back on the coast until late Friday afternoon, they trained Saturday, then put in what most of us would objectively describe as a good performance versus the Roar. The GPS numbers of some of the players (particularly Storm) were unbelievable. We will get better as the season goes on at dealing with the higher demands, and with the prize money available in the AFC Cup (which is essential for a small club like the Mariners), we hope to go a long way in this competition.
I’ll be the first to acknowledge that losing our first four games of the season is disappointing, but we will be active within our means, just as we were last season, in attempting to strengthen our squad during the January window. In the meantime, I respectfully ask that we all give the new coaches and players time, we desperately need you all to keep supporting the club despite our start.
We are still the same low budget club fighting hard to compete with the deeper pocketed rivals, and despite our best efforts, we will inevitably have good, great and unfortunately frustrating periods. We need your support through all three phases!
Thank you for your time reading this message, I look forward to seeing you all at our next home game.
Yours faithfully,
Rich Peil
It has been several months since my last message to you, and many things have changed at the club in the meantime, so the timing is right for another update.
Liberty A-League Women
Firstly, I hope you are all enjoying having a Liberty A-League Women team back on the coast. How exciting was the game last Sunday versus a very good Brisbane outfit? Incredible! Although we came away with one point instead of three, every person watching that game came away with a ‘win’ in their ‘entertainment value’ column. Thank you to all 3,500 that came along and supported the team live. To those that didn’t, you missed out big time! I hope you make it there this Saturday night to see for yourself how good our girls are going.
Apart from a nervous first half of our very first game, the squad’s performance, led by Emily Husband and her support crew, has been outstanding. When you consider that some of our best players like Kyah Simon and Casey Dumont are yet to take the pitch, we definitely look like being competitive in our first season back!
Thank you
On another positive note, I’d like to say a sincere and heartfelt ‘thank you’ to all the members and fans that have shared their well wishes and supportive comments to myself and others at the club recently, despite our tough start to the season. It means a lot and we deeply appreciate that many people still remember we delivered a Championship just six months ago. Although we are facing some challenges right now, we are focused on making the top six, to once again give us a shot at doing the seemingly impossible.
Financial Update
Throughout the offseason we proactively made significant changes to the business side of the club, and I’m very pleased to say that we’re in the best commercial position since this club's inception. We still have a long way to go to achieve financial sustainability though, so the entire corporate team are still working hard every day to grow our fanbase and unlock more partnerships to move us towards a secure long-term future.
Unfortunately, despite spending a substantial sum on advisors, retainers and marketing, so far I have not been able to find an investor to join me to form a long-term partnership committed to youth development and keeping the club on the coast. I haven’t given up hope and in fact we are now taking a different approach, trying to find several smaller investors to form an ‘ownership group’ to share the cost while we build the Mariners into a self-sustaining business model. In the meantime, please continue your efforts to get as many fans supporting our club as you can. Every single membership sold helps massively. It helps financially, but just as importantly, it shows potential investors that the people of the Central Coast want their football team to remain on the coast!
Setting the Record Straight
I’d like to address some of the commentary and feedback I’ve heard circulating the club in relation to our Isuzu UTE A-Leagues team’s start to the season. Here are some facts:
- We were obviously keen to keep Nick Montgomery for one more season and offered him a very significant increase in remuneration for the 23/24 financial year. Despite this, in the end Nick decided it was time to challenge himself in Europe. We respect his decision and sincerely wish him well.
- Last season’s Championship was not the result of a ‘one-year successful sprint’. It took four years of hard work by Monty and Serg both in the academy space and then in the first team environment to win the Championship. There were many others like Anton Tagliaferro and Shaun Mielekamp who worked tirelessly behind the scenes over that four-year period that also contributed greatly to the Championship.
Championships are not delivered in one season. Australian legend Mark Viduka played 17 seasons of club football and won only four Championships. That doesn’t mean the other 13 seasons were a waste, or were poor, or were necessarily worthy of criticism, it just means that his team didn’t have all the pieces they needed to be the best in those years.
- We did not want to lose as many players as we did in the off-season. In particular, I hoped to keep McGarry, Nkololo and Silvera (if you ask Sammy how many times I urged him to stay, he’ll tell you it was a lot!). The money we actually receive in the club’s pocket from these transfers after everyone takes their cut is nowhere near what people are reporting, and specifically in the case of these players, I would take them wearing our shirt for one more season over the money received every day of the week.
- In Silvera, Cummings and Nkololo we lost 36 goals and 14 assists a season when they left the club. Candidly, we haven’t managed to replace this, yet. But people have to understand that some of our replacements have not been playing regular football for the last two years, so they need to be given time to find the form we all know they are capable of. I think we all saw glimpses of what Alou will bring to the club long term from his performance against Brisbane.
- Mark Jackson was appointed by a panel of myself, Matt Simon and Anton Tagliaferro. We were unanimous in our decision, which was based on the merits of his playing career, his success working on a daily basis with coaches like Marcelo Bielsa and Jesse Marsch, and most importantly, his exceptional pedigree of youth development over the seven years he was at Leeds United. For example, Crysencio Summerville, Sam Greenwood and England u/21 International Charlie Cresswell are just three out of over 25 players currently playing professionally in the UK to have come out of Jacko’s program! He is the hardest working coach Matt Simon has ever encountered. We are fully confident in our decision, Mark just needs time to mould a squad that will fit his playing demands and style.
- Our poor start this season did not coincide with the arrival of the current coaching staff. We in fact did not beat any A-Leagues clubs in preseason, even before the previous coaching team left. Championship ‘hangover’ associated with a young squad, coupled with the loss of so many players, are in my view the reasons for our poor start, not the coaching changes.
- Excluding the performance against Macarthur FC, we have been competitive this season before injuries and red cards have come into play. Playing in Asia and Australia simultaneously is tough, especially at the beginning. The history of Australian teams competing in Asia shows that Aussie clubs, especially those with young teams, do not perform well in both competitions in the first year. Our squad is still learning to deal with the demands of the increased workload. To give you an example of what you don’t see, last Wednesday’s conditions in Bali were described by Vuka as the toughest he has encountered in his twenty-year career. Following that match, the team didn’t arrive back on the coast until late Friday afternoon, they trained Saturday, then put in what most of us would objectively describe as a good performance versus the Roar. The GPS numbers of some of the players (particularly Storm) were unbelievable. We will get better as the season goes on at dealing with the higher demands, and with the prize money available in the AFC Cup (which is essential for a small club like the Mariners), we hope to go a long way in this competition.
I’ll be the first to acknowledge that losing our first four games of the season is disappointing, but we will be active within our means, just as we were last season, in attempting to strengthen our squad during the January window. In the meantime, I respectfully ask that we all give the new coaches and players time, we desperately need you all to keep supporting the club despite our start.
We are still the same low budget club fighting hard to compete with the deeper pocketed rivals, and despite our best efforts, we will inevitably have good, great and unfortunately frustrating periods. We need your support through all three phases!
Thank you for your time reading this message, I look forward to seeing you all at our next home game.
Yours faithfully,
Rich Peil
