In defence of the Central Coast Mariners
Have you noticed the following comment come up in A-League expansion discussions: “we don’t want another Central Coast Mariners.”
It’s as though any similarity to the Mariners will sink an expansion bid faster than a stone cast into Tuggerah Lake.
Surely the ultimate worth of a club is how it performs on the field. So it might be worth re-capping what the Mariners have achieved.
Central Coast have won the premiership twice and been runners up twice. They have also won one A-League grand final (Championship) and have been runner up three times.
Two of their grand final losses to Brisbane Roar have been among the most exciting domestic club games ever played in Australia.
The Mariners have represented Australia in the Asian Champions League and have performed creditably. All this in just eleven years.
Their last grand final appearance was in 2013, so the current so-called slump is all of three and a bit years – barely a blip on the horizon for most sporting teams in any part of the world. Any expansion club would kill for results like these.
But surely the Mariners have contributed nothing to Australian football in terms of personnel.
Wrong.
Take Mile Jedinak for starters. Australian captain and a regular in the Championship with Aston Villa. Then there is Matt Ryan, the current Socceroo goalkeeper plying his trade in Spain.
Then of course there is Tom Rogic, the Socceroos and Celtic midfielder, and one of the most skilled Australian footballers since the golden generation.
Three current Socceroos (and I may have forgotten others) is not bad in anyone’s language.
On the local scene, Sydney FC have benefited from ex-Central Coast players, in particular the pacy Bernie Ibini and the blond firebrand Matt Simon.
The Mariners have even contributed on the coaching front with one of Australia’s premier coaches, Graham Arnold, being a Central Coast old boy.
And what about expanding the game to new audiences? The Mariners are the only existing Australian club who could be regarded as evangelists for the code.
All the other clubs have some football history and support to draw on. But the Mariners are a football outpost in a rugby league stronghold. And they have made a difference.
I spend a lot of time in the area. Locals know about Australian football because of the Mariners. There is a love for the team that doesn’t always come out in the crowd numbers.
The only A-League grand final I saw live was Mariners versus the Jets in 2008. There was great support that day for both clubs. The Mariners faithful at the northern end of Allianz Stadium were making a hell of a racket.
When the Mariners beat the Wanderers in the 2013 grand final there were stirring celebrations in the local area.
Adding to the club’s standing in the community is its Centre of Excellence and a recent proposal to enter a team into the W-League for season 2017-18.
Attendances are another reason people will disparage the Mariners. Average crowds of around 6,000 just don’t cut it according to some. But as a proportion of the area’s population of 300,000 this is not such a bad figure.
At a ratio of one-in-50 of spectators to population this is equivalent to a 20,000 crowd in a city of one million. And not too many A-League teams average that.
And really, how many of the potential expansion clubs will draw a home crowd of more than 6,000?
Positioned as it is, halfway between Sydney and Newcastle, Central Coast stadium provides for reasonable access for away fans of the NSW clubs. And what a great boutique stadium it is.
It would be the envy of any expansion club. If only the TV cameras could be positioned on the opposite side of the ground to show the faithful in the Western stand!
Central Coast Mariners are a founding club of the A-League. History matters. With each passing year, the Mariners’ history and tradition grows a little more. Given enough time they will feature in stories of the good old days.
None of the proposed bids for expansion teams are perfect. There are no Western Sydney Wanderers among them. Any potential expansion club could do worse than emulate the Central Coast Mariners.
http://www.theroar.com.au/2017/01/07/defence-central-coast-mariners/
