Mariner stuff not worthy of a whole thread

[Ancient Mariner]

Hope Man U. has to pay us an enormous transfer fee.

 

[Insertnamehere]

Hope Man U. has to pay us an enormous transfer fee.

Expect breadcrumbs and belly button lint

 

[Ancient Mariner]

Expect breadcrumbs and belly button lint

You are optimistic.

 

[Insertnamehere]

You are optimistic.

They're manc's I wouldn't expect anything less.

 

[Antlion]

Nikola Mrdja to fight drug, weapons charges
https://thewest.com.au/sport/perth-...-to-fight-drug-weapons-charges-ng-b881176535z

 

[marinermick]

Nikola Mrdja to fight drug, weapons charges
https://thewest.com.au/sport/perth-...-to-fight-drug-weapons-charges-ng-b881176535z

geez, what a shock!

 

[BrisRecky]

Fkn Disco Nik huh?....always said he looked like Albanian mafia ...now his gone and proved it

 

[Wombat]

TBF if Disco ever held a weapon up to me i would have cracked him ....only because he never stuck me as a Villian.

The silencer shows a dark side!!!!

 

[BrisRecky]

Yeah, all you have to do would be kick him in the knee cap...GAWNSKI

 

[style_cafe]

Joyful Penguin
I`ve just had a message from JP .
He hasn`t been well and will be back with us soon which is fantastic news.
He`s such a good guy and I,for one, have really missed his posts
Best wishes JP I hope you get well soon mate.

 

[Antlion]

'It's a bottomless pit': Inside the decline of the Central Coast Mariners
By Lucas Radbourne May 1 2019 7:30AM
https://www.ftbl.com.au/news/its-a-...ne-of-the-central-coast-mariners-524463/page0

There are few more idyllic locations in world football than Central Coast Stadium.
Perched so close to pristine Brisbane Water that hard-driven shots can almost become seaborn, the ground eponymously referred to as Grahame Park holds the true meaning of the term ‘boutique’.

On match days the coastal sun casts a warm glow upon canary Mariners colours. Shaded by overhanging palm trees, in any capital city this would be millionaire-territory: a place reserved for the finer things and the too-often drab, precious individuals who possess them.

But as Mariners CEO, Shaun Mielekamp suggests, this isn’t camera-snapping Sydney harbour or the espresso-swilling docks of Melbourne. This is the smallest market in Australian sport, where small-town ethos is both their greatest strength and biggest disadvantage.

“Culture is everything for us, that’s the primary focus,” Mielekamp says. We’re speaking less than a month after new coach Mike Mulvey’s first match, an 8-2 hiding at the hands of bitter rivals, Newcastle Jets.

“We’ve got a responsibility to represent the Central Coast on a national stage, to add profile to those organisations that are doing a great job on the Coast: Cancer Council, Surf Lifesaving - it’s in all walks; radio stations, newspapers, they all play a part in our community engagement.

“Community is key to our success.”

It’s understandable that Mielekamp, a former marketing and merchandising boffin in the NRL, wants to steer the conversation towards community. The ‘community club’, as the Mariners call themselves, have always been at the forefront of the A-League’s public engagement, with great success.

However, just as success becomes hollow without community, community becomes depressive without success.

Two Premierships, a Championship and three runners-up medals between 2007 and 2013 are fading reminders of a dominant era for the Mariners that surprised everyone, most of all the Coast’s locals, who had been unable to sustain a national sporting club throughout the region’s history.

Gosfordians - an eclectic mix of strolling retirees and preening tattooed surfers – have earned a reputation for not taking life too seriously. The would-be rugby heartland’s unusual relationship with football, characterised best by the Mariners’ historically testy relationship with local council, is only one reason why few mementos to the good ol’ days adorn the Mariners’ home turf.

The surrounding Grahame Park is named after Gosford’s first mayor, William Calman Grahame, a Maitland-native who was expelled from the Labor Party and left politics after a series of corruption allegations. Inside the stadium, the name of failed NRL bid ‘Central Coast Bears’ still marks the stadium seating, despite the Mariners solely representing Gosford on the national stage for the last 15 years.

On match days, beyond the now sparsely-populated stadia, giant, inflatable sauce bottles block out a million-dollar view of the ocean. There’s even, on special occasions, a Masterfoods blimp.

Once upon a time, this unique atmosphere made the club’s achievements all-the-more incredible. They’re the fool that rushed in where every other code feared to tread and, in the process, gifted a rich sporting history to a town so periodically overlooked.

But if you think the sun always shines on the carefree inhabitants of Gosford, you’re wrong. There are storm clouds on the horizon.

In a salary-capped league, Central Coast have finished in the bottom-three for each of the past five seasons, failing to register a blip on the competition since the departure of now-Socceroos boss Graham Arnold.

Their decline began under previous owner Peter Turnbull, when it was revealed in early 2013 that players were on the brink of walking away due to unpaid wages. The famously unified Mariners dressing room had fractured and the club – which were still second in the league – were teetering on the verge of collapse.

The saviour was long-term shareholder Mike Charlesworth, an English businessman and Leeds United fanatic, who had already witnessed the devastating effect of a club’s decline into financial ruin. After paying Turnbull’s debts, an empathetic Charlesworth launched a widespread campaign, seeking long-term investment from the famously tight-belted local government, cash-strapped FFA and unnamed foreign investors.

“I don't think it's right that an individual from England should be carrying the financial can for football on the (Central) coast,” Charlesworth told the Mariners’ website in 2015.

“There are a number of people we'll be asking to come forward, but we're very confident of a successful future for the Mariners, put it that way.

“We've got a great tradition now, a great heart, a great culture, and that will continue. We're not any less ambitious that anyone else, perhaps we're more ambitious. Success breeds success. That will continue.”

Despite Charlesworth’s rally-cries, warning signals began to sound when financial stability, with the view of onselling the club, couldn’t result in outside investment. Ultimately it was two months from December 2013 to January 2014 that broke the Mariners: 62 days that became the darkest in an ever-darkening history for the club.

The downturn began when club icon Patrick Zwaanswijk retired, before Arnold and renowned sports scientist Andrew Clark took posts at Japanese club Vegalta Sendai. Star import Marco Flores then ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament, while then-reigning Team of the Season entrant Michael McGlinchey, future Socceroo Trent Sainsbury and record-goalscorer Daniel McBreen continued a mass exodus.

In return, the Mariners recruited unusually poorly; bringing in Eddy Bosnar, Glen Trifiro, Matt Sim, Isaaka Cernak and short-lived K-League winger Kim Seung-Yong. This ushered in a series of short-lived foreign signings and Fortress Gosford, which had stood test to Asia’s biggest clubs throughout the Mariners’ hey-day, subsequently fell. Five years later and the club is still trying to claw it back.

Now a passionate Mariners fan, whose social media abounds with photos of his son in yellow and navy, Mielekamp missed the golden years. Upon taking the role of CEO in 2015, the Mariners had slipped from third position to eighth and were in the midst of a 10-player cleanout.

His tenure has overseen a second eighth-placed finish and three wooden spoons, in one of the starkest turnarounds in Australian sport. From the A-League’s inception until the 2013 Grand Final, the Mariners were the best side in the competition, playing 195 games, winning 85 and scoring 310 points. From 2013 until February this year, the Mariners played 156 matches and won only 31, earning 128 points. Their rivals, Newcastle, are the next worst: 53 points better off.

It’s a shocking decline nobody at Central Coast expected, but it’s a familiar story for Mielekamp. During his time at South Sydney Rabbitohs the club only finished as high as seventh, while in four years at Penrith Panthers they only finished above 11th once.

Mielekamp’s luck finally appeared to change when he jumped ship to the A-League as commercial manager of Western Sydney Wanderers. But after two successful years in the role, the Wanderers slumped to ninth place and Mielekamp again departed to take up his fifth role in eight years at the helm of the Mariners.

Now, with extensive experience trying to sell a distant ideal to frustrated fans of an underperforming team, he insists that listening is the most important part.

“The community, because we’re close and engaged, you hear it all – the good, the bad, the indifferent,” he says. “It’s been really rewarding to hear how many people are passionately still with us – they’re supportive of the journey we’re going on and those things really buoy you.

“But they’re not afraid to tell you when they’re not happy as well and we’ve got to take that on board and listen, if nothing else. Make sure we take the time to listen and understand.

“Anyone who engages the Mariners brand needs to understand how they can help us grow – every time we go to a school we need to turn them into fans, they need ticket offers and to know where the stadium is, it’s about doing the right thing. You’ve got to believe if you do the right thing, the right thing will happen to you as well.

“We’re doing as much as our resources and manpower allow. Is it enough? It’s never enough. There’s never enough good stuff that we can do out there, we’ve got to keep doing more. I think we reached well over 10,000 kids in schools last season.

“But it’s not enough, it’s a bottomless pit…”

Gosfordians used to know where the Mariners’ stadium was. In 2007/08 Central Coast, under the stewardship of Lawrie McKinna, averaged over 15,000 people per match. Their Grand Final drew a 36,000-strong against Newcastle Jets.

Flash forward and this season is the Mariners’ worst on record. Just 6,000 trundle through the gates at Gosford, while this season’s highest attendance is only half of 2007’s average. Central Coast crowds are no longer joyously apathetic, they’re turning away in droves. Many are irate, but the worst are mocking.

The fans who thought it couldn’t get any worse under the undisciplined guise of Tony Walmsley sat through 20 losses in 24 matches this season. This ratio surpasses New Zealand Knights - a club that lasted two seasons before it folded - for the worst losing record in A-League history.

Mike Mulvey, a coach whose previous A-League tenure resulted in a Premiership / Championship double, won just five per-cent of his matches with the club.

"It's actually quite embarrassing as coaches and players to walk around Gosford and Terrigal because we want to be able to give the fans something to cheer about," Mulvey said a month before his sacking.

The English coach faced a titanic task at Central Coast. Gushing beneath pervasive rumours of backroom bust-ups and player desertions, a slew of simple undercurrents prevented the Mariners from winning matches.

While Mulvey replaced Paul Okon in April 2018, he suffered a pre-season devilled by the arrival of Usain Bolt, a publicity ploy which backfired immensely.

“We never rule out a marquee,” Mielekamp said a few months before Bolt’s arrival.

“We proved with Luis Garcia that it’s not a possibility, it’s about the right person at the right time and what’s financially realistic. Some of the figures you hear out there at the moment…,” he laughed, “some of these things are impossible.”

“There is a marquee fund and if the right person comes along, we’ll make the right decision for our community.”

That ‘right person’ for a moment appeared to be the Jamaican sprinter. He came in swaggering with bravado and became a fixture on the nightly news. He conquered the Australian media in Mariners colours for a day, but then left unceremoniously, refusing to accept a contract offer from a club that he was never good enough to play for in the beginning.

Bolt briefly salvaged broader community interest in the Mariners, but ultimately left behind a hollow feeling and the stench of desperation. It was a patterned shift from a club that on the back of their own youth development had previously dominated the A-League.

In the shadow of the $100 million Tuggerah Centre of Excellence, the Mariners sold-out, and in the process, lost a part of their identity.

Central Coast tragic and author of ‘Lawrie McKinna’s Dangerous Truth’, Adrian Deans, says Bolt’s trial represents a shift in the Mariners’ hierarchy’s approach.

“The team is playing badly which is a major turn off for many, but there is no great communicator like McKinna to go on giving hope and showing the road ahead,” Deans says.

“Instead we get silence from the likes of Mike Charlesworth and Mielekamp, or pathetic stunts like the Bolt farce which completely distracted from our pre-season.

“Mulvey must have been fuming as that unfolded, just as he fumed as his underfunded and misfiring team limp to second place every week.

“There is just no mental toughness when the hard work needs to be done in the second half. The mentality of the halves is very different – the run out and the run home – and it’s the run home that really matters when your quality has put you one or two up at half time.

“It’s that lack of resilience that most shows up in a lack of cohesion between the lines, bad decision making and unforced errors. The number of times I’ve seen the Mariners turn away from the easy ball or best option, hit the ball out under no pressure, or generally play without a plan does my head in.

“And as soon as they concede they expect to lose, and play accordingly.”

The A-League’s salary cap is supposed to provide a form of social security, existing so the Mariners, more than any other club, aren’t left in the gutter. But there’s no insurance policy on what Deans’ terms “something rotten” seeping into the Mariners’ culture.

Star imports Ross McCormack, Kalifa Cisse and Tom Hiariej seemingly copped out this season through poor-form and persistent injury, while the likes of Andrew Hoole were caught out defying drinking bans.

The once so promising youth conveyor belt grinded to a halt as $500,000 per-year Daniel De Silva was loaned out after failing to deliver. Then there was the loss of Antony Golec – who Mulvey had claimed he wanted “to build a team around”. Golec said after his departure that he “wasn’t happy” at the club and that the Bolt saga “looks bad because of what the club has been through”.

Most devastating is the departure of Matt Millar, for free, to the Mariners’ F3 rivals. Millar’s departure, while likely symptomatic of the Central Coast’s slow grinding mechanics taking took far too long to muster a contract offer, is also a sign of the times.

Given the faint sight of dry land, Mariners will jump ship.

When you hear terms like “if nothing else” and “bottomless pit” creep into the CEO’s vernacular, it’s understandable why the club’s fans held up banners mocking over 300 days since their last win. If you’re one of the rusted-on that so fondly remembers the golden era, at some point you either have to laugh or cry.

An excruciated Matt Simon fronted the media after Central Coast threw away a 1-0 lead to lose 5-2 to Sydney FC in January, their eleventh match without a win.

"Nothing's changed," Simon said. "People are going to talk about how we started and the red card but it's not good enough, it's unacceptable.

“I don't know what the club's situation is on bringing new players in, obviously something has to change sooner or later or things are going to keep going the same."

The same breeding ground that bore fruit to Socceroos Michael Beauchamp, Alex Wilkinson, Danny Vukovic, Oliver Bozanic, Mile Jedinak, Bernie Ibini, Mustafa Amini, Tom Rogic, Mat Ryan and Trent Sainsbury over just six years has barely flowered since Rogic’s departure in 2013.

Yet Mielekamp insisted that their decline in youth development isn’t a sign that the Mariners have lost touch and are fostering an unhealthy culture.

“The A-league landscape changes every year,” he said.

“We don’t know what next year’s going to look like, Sydney FC and Western Sydney Wanderers change locations, they have to move around and lose some of their aspects – the landscape changes every year.

“Does it mean that we can’t be dynamic and innovative in our approach? Absolutely not, it’s what we’re here to do.

"Every time the A-league evolves, it creates new opportunities – we have the ability to create the opportunity for young players who can’t get the game time in other clubs because they’re sitting behind big marquees – with every change, there are new opportunities.

“If you look back at our history, we’ve been able to develop young players and have been successful. Still to this day, whenever the Socceroos play all the ex-Mariners get together, they take a photo and they send it back to the club with a lot of pride. The secret for us is that players who go on to bigger and better things after the Mariners have embraced Central Coast as a region and it’s allowed them to perform their best.

“The culture and academy in our first team is the recipe for success. It’s not an easy exercise, there’s no opportunity for mistakes, but I have every confidence that we’ll continue to take the right steps forward.”

Deans echoes that it all starts with community, but believes Mielekamp and Charlesworth have taken the wrong approach.

“All our promising youth sign for other clubs,” he says.

“The Mariners used to be known as the ‘community club’. That was only possible while the fans felt they had access to the coach and the team, to the extent that the team felt part of the community and the fans felt part of the team. That’s what we’ve lost.

“The rebuilding has to start with the coach and the fans. The club needs to invite the fans back in and require the players to be part of the community. Charlesworth didn’t want to sell, which is fair enough, but what has he done since?

“He forced out Okon just when he looked to be building something solid by refusing to spend money and then Mulvey with the same constraints.”

Charlesworth, who lives in England, has been widely criticised for his rare communication with the club’s fan base. While the Mariners aren’t last in A-league spending (that honour goes to the club that beat them 8-2 before Mulvey’s sacking), they have also consistently spent close to the bare minimum throughout Charlesworth’s tenure.

Whether that stands to change under an independent A-League model remains to be seen, however much of the damage has already been done. In addition to losing Walmsley, forcing out Okon and telling club icon John Hutchinson that he wasn’t wanted in an assistant coaching role, the club’s transfer strategy has seen a further desertion of the Mariners’ roots.

The Mariners’ academy - The Centre of Excellence - was purpose-built to ensure the club’s long-term success. Now four-years-old, the Mariners haven’t regularly featured a single player from the academy this season. Their latest signings, British youngsters Stephen Mallon and Sam Graham, were loaned from Championship side Sheffield United. While Mallon’s managed a single strike and generally adequate performances, Graham’s been widely criticised for not being up to the league’s quality.

Meanwhile, over the past two seasons, Millar, Jonathan Aspropotamitis, Trent Buhagiar, Lachlan Wales, Scott Galloway and Jake McGing have all departed for other A-League clubs or European opportunities.

It’s one of a series of Charlesworth decision that seems to distance the club from Australian football. The Mariners first appointed Harry Redknapp as a ‘football consultant’, only for the English gaffer to infamously call the club the ‘South Coast Mariners’ and admit he never had plans to travel Down Under.

The most recent is technical director Mike Phelan, who also lives in England and admitted that his other role as assistant coach of Manchester United takes up “all his time”.

Yet Mielekamp insists that the club are making the right appointments. It’s doubtful the CEO can exert any influence over Charlesworth’s decisions from the other side of the world. If he could, it’s unknown what he’d say.

Mielekamp’s expertise instead lies in the commercial realm. He knows how to sell ideas and the idea he’s selling is that the Mariners’ foundation remains strong.

“We’re making sure that the right people and personalities are coming to the club, every post is a winner and every inch is gained,” he says.

“We need to make sure we’re ensuring the financial sustainability of the club – that’s always first and foremost. A reckless decision could do us more harm than good.

“We do everything that we can, if we can do it, we will. If it’s simply having a player go and make a young kid smile, or raising awareness of critical campaigns, we’ll be there, every time.

“It really is, for us, about making sure everybody’s on the same path – focused on gaining every inch and the more inches we get, the further we go. It’s a tribute to our philosophy to focus on personality first and foremost. There is always more work to be done. Never not more work to be done.

“There’s plenty to do but it feels alright at the moment, like we’re making the right steps. But only time will tell.”

The club’s latest appointment, Alen Stajcic, is set to absorb scrutiny for the time being. He began to address on-field issues after the club’s 5-0 loss to Melbourne City, claiming the Mariners required “a better foundation, more stability and more depth”.

Whether he’ll address what appears to be a cultural shift at the club remains to be seen. This is the same coach that, albeit under much secrecy and controversy, was sacked from his last post for presiding over a “toxic culture”.

It’s enough to lead Deans to question whether the Mariners have a strategy at all.

“What exactly is the Mariners’ plan?” Deans asks.

“Sydney FC have a trademark. Victory and Perth play in a very predictable (but effective way). Melbourne City have the money and Mark Rudan has turned Wellington into an excellent team who are fun to watch.

“Something rotten has seeped into the Mariners since Arnie left and it will take a long time to fix, the way player contracts work.

“The famous spirit is gone and there’s no money for the sort of quality we need to rebuild both spirit and discipline. The right sort of manager needs time to sweep out the old and bring in the new to suit a new template.

“At the moment the Mariners are a dysfunctional football team and desperately need rebooting. Something really big needs to change.

“It’s hard to change the players; easy to change the coach; and really, really hard to change the owner.”

 

[Insertnamehere]

'It's a bottomless pit': Inside the decline of the Central Coast Mariners
By Lucas Radbourne May 1 2019 7:30AM
https://www.ftbl.com.au/news/its-a-...ne-of-the-central-coast-mariners-524463/page0

There are few more idyllic locations in world football than Central Coast Stadium.
Perched so close to pristine Brisbane Water that hard-driven shots can almost become seaborn, the ground eponymously referred to as Grahame Park holds the true meaning of the term ‘boutique’.

On match days the coastal sun casts a warm glow upon canary Mariners colours. Shaded by overhanging palm trees, in any capital city this would be millionaire-territory: a place reserved for the finer things and the too-often drab, precious individuals who possess them.

But as Mariners CEO, Shaun Mielekamp suggests, this isn’t camera-snapping Sydney harbour or the espresso-swilling docks of Melbourne. This is the smallest market in Australian sport, where small-town ethos is both their greatest strength and biggest disadvantage.

“Culture is everything for us, that’s the primary focus,” Mielekamp says. We’re speaking less than a month after new coach Mike Mulvey’s first match, an 8-2 hiding at the hands of bitter rivals, Newcastle Jets.

“We’ve got a responsibility to represent the Central Coast on a national stage, to add profile to those organisations that are doing a great job on the Coast: Cancer Council, Surf Lifesaving - it’s in all walks; radio stations, newspapers, they all play a part in our community engagement.

“Community is key to our success.”

It’s understandable that Mielekamp, a former marketing and merchandising boffin in the NRL, wants to steer the conversation towards community. The ‘community club’, as the Mariners call themselves, have always been at the forefront of the A-League’s public engagement, with great success.

However, just as success becomes hollow without community, community becomes depressive without success.

Two Premierships, a Championship and three runners-up medals between 2007 and 2013 are fading reminders of a dominant era for the Mariners that surprised everyone, most of all the Coast’s locals, who had been unable to sustain a national sporting club throughout the region’s history.

Gosfordians - an eclectic mix of strolling retirees and preening tattooed surfers – have earned a reputation for not taking life too seriously. The would-be rugby heartland’s unusual relationship with football, characterised best by the Mariners’ historically testy relationship with local council, is only one reason why few mementos to the good ol’ days adorn the Mariners’ home turf.

The surrounding Grahame Park is named after Gosford’s first mayor, William Calman Grahame, a Maitland-native who was expelled from the Labor Party and left politics after a series of corruption allegations. Inside the stadium, the name of failed NRL bid ‘Central Coast Bears’ still marks the stadium seating, despite the Mariners solely representing Gosford on the national stage for the last 15 years.

On match days, beyond the now sparsely-populated stadia, giant, inflatable sauce bottles block out a million-dollar view of the ocean. There’s even, on special occasions, a Masterfoods blimp.

Once upon a time, this unique atmosphere made the club’s achievements all-the-more incredible. They’re the fool that rushed in where every other code feared to tread and, in the process, gifted a rich sporting history to a town so periodically overlooked.

But if you think the sun always shines on the carefree inhabitants of Gosford, you’re wrong. There are storm clouds on the horizon.

In a salary-capped league, Central Coast have finished in the bottom-three for each of the past five seasons, failing to register a blip on the competition since the departure of now-Socceroos boss Graham Arnold.

Their decline began under previous owner Peter Turnbull, when it was revealed in early 2013 that players were on the brink of walking away due to unpaid wages. The famously unified Mariners dressing room had fractured and the club – which were still second in the league – were teetering on the verge of collapse.

The saviour was long-term shareholder Mike Charlesworth, an English businessman and Leeds United fanatic, who had already witnessed the devastating effect of a club’s decline into financial ruin. After paying Turnbull’s debts, an empathetic Charlesworth launched a widespread campaign, seeking long-term investment from the famously tight-belted local government, cash-strapped FFA and unnamed foreign investors.

“I don't think it's right that an individual from England should be carrying the financial can for football on the (Central) coast,” Charlesworth told the Mariners’ website in 2015.

“There are a number of people we'll be asking to come forward, but we're very confident of a successful future for the Mariners, put it that way.

“We've got a great tradition now, a great heart, a great culture, and that will continue. We're not any less ambitious that anyone else, perhaps we're more ambitious. Success breeds success. That will continue.”

Despite Charlesworth’s rally-cries, warning signals began to sound when financial stability, with the view of onselling the club, couldn’t result in outside investment. Ultimately it was two months from December 2013 to January 2014 that broke the Mariners: 62 days that became the darkest in an ever-darkening history for the club.

The downturn began when club icon Patrick Zwaanswijk retired, before Arnold and renowned sports scientist Andrew Clark took posts at Japanese club Vegalta Sendai. Star import Marco Flores then ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament, while then-reigning Team of the Season entrant Michael McGlinchey, future Socceroo Trent Sainsbury and record-goalscorer Daniel McBreen continued a mass exodus.

In return, the Mariners recruited unusually poorly; bringing in Eddy Bosnar, Glen Trifiro, Matt Sim, Isaaka Cernak and short-lived K-League winger Kim Seung-Yong. This ushered in a series of short-lived foreign signings and Fortress Gosford, which had stood test to Asia’s biggest clubs throughout the Mariners’ hey-day, subsequently fell. Five years later and the club is still trying to claw it back.

Now a passionate Mariners fan, whose social media abounds with photos of his son in yellow and navy, Mielekamp missed the golden years. Upon taking the role of CEO in 2015, the Mariners had slipped from third position to eighth and were in the midst of a 10-player cleanout.

His tenure has overseen a second eighth-placed finish and three wooden spoons, in one of the starkest turnarounds in Australian sport. From the A-League’s inception until the 2013 Grand Final, the Mariners were the best side in the competition, playing 195 games, winning 85 and scoring 310 points. From 2013 until February this year, the Mariners played 156 matches and won only 31, earning 128 points. Their rivals, Newcastle, are the next worst: 53 points better off.

It’s a shocking decline nobody at Central Coast expected, but it’s a familiar story for Mielekamp. During his time at South Sydney Rabbitohs the club only finished as high as seventh, while in four years at Penrith Panthers they only finished above 11th once.

Mielekamp’s luck finally appeared to change when he jumped ship to the A-League as commercial manager of Western Sydney Wanderers. But after two successful years in the role, the Wanderers slumped to ninth place and Mielekamp again departed to take up his fifth role in eight years at the helm of the Mariners.

Now, with extensive experience trying to sell a distant ideal to frustrated fans of an underperforming team, he insists that listening is the most important part.

“The community, because we’re close and engaged, you hear it all – the good, the bad, the indifferent,” he says. “It’s been really rewarding to hear how many people are passionately still with us – they’re supportive of the journey we’re going on and those things really buoy you.

“But they’re not afraid to tell you when they’re not happy as well and we’ve got to take that on board and listen, if nothing else. Make sure we take the time to listen and understand.

“Anyone who engages the Mariners brand needs to understand how they can help us grow – every time we go to a school we need to turn them into fans, they need ticket offers and to know where the stadium is, it’s about doing the right thing. You’ve got to believe if you do the right thing, the right thing will happen to you as well.

“We’re doing as much as our resources and manpower allow. Is it enough? It’s never enough. There’s never enough good stuff that we can do out there, we’ve got to keep doing more. I think we reached well over 10,000 kids in schools last season.

“But it’s not enough, it’s a bottomless pit…”

Gosfordians used to know where the Mariners’ stadium was. In 2007/08 Central Coast, under the stewardship of Lawrie McKinna, averaged over 15,000 people per match. Their Grand Final drew a 36,000-strong against Newcastle Jets.

Flash forward and this season is the Mariners’ worst on record. Just 6,000 trundle through the gates at Gosford, while this season’s highest attendance is only half of 2007’s average. Central Coast crowds are no longer joyously apathetic, they’re turning away in droves. Many are irate, but the worst are mocking.

The fans who thought it couldn’t get any worse under the undisciplined guise of Tony Walmsley sat through 20 losses in 24 matches this season. This ratio surpasses New Zealand Knights - a club that lasted two seasons before it folded - for the worst losing record in A-League history.

Mike Mulvey, a coach whose previous A-League tenure resulted in a Premiership / Championship double, won just five per-cent of his matches with the club.

"It's actually quite embarrassing as coaches and players to walk around Gosford and Terrigal because we want to be able to give the fans something to cheer about," Mulvey said a month before his sacking.

The English coach faced a titanic task at Central Coast. Gushing beneath pervasive rumours of backroom bust-ups and player desertions, a slew of simple undercurrents prevented the Mariners from winning matches.

While Mulvey replaced Paul Okon in April 2018, he suffered a pre-season devilled by the arrival of Usain Bolt, a publicity ploy which backfired immensely.

“We never rule out a marquee,” Mielekamp said a few months before Bolt’s arrival.

“We proved with Luis Garcia that it’s not a possibility, it’s about the right person at the right time and what’s financially realistic. Some of the figures you hear out there at the moment…,” he laughed, “some of these things are impossible.”

“There is a marquee fund and if the right person comes along, we’ll make the right decision for our community.”

That ‘right person’ for a moment appeared to be the Jamaican sprinter. He came in swaggering with bravado and became a fixture on the nightly news. He conquered the Australian media in Mariners colours for a day, but then left unceremoniously, refusing to accept a contract offer from a club that he was never good enough to play for in the beginning.

Bolt briefly salvaged broader community interest in the Mariners, but ultimately left behind a hollow feeling and the stench of desperation. It was a patterned shift from a club that on the back of their own youth development had previously dominated the A-League.

In the shadow of the $100 million Tuggerah Centre of Excellence, the Mariners sold-out, and in the process, lost a part of their identity.

Central Coast tragic and author of ‘Lawrie McKinna’s Dangerous Truth’, Adrian Deans, says Bolt’s trial represents a shift in the Mariners’ hierarchy’s approach.

“The team is playing badly which is a major turn off for many, but there is no great communicator like McKinna to go on giving hope and showing the road ahead,” Deans says.

“Instead we get silence from the likes of Mike Charlesworth and Mielekamp, or pathetic stunts like the Bolt farce which completely distracted from our pre-season.

“Mulvey must have been fuming as that unfolded, just as he fumed as his underfunded and misfiring team limp to second place every week.

“There is just no mental toughness when the hard work needs to be done in the second half. The mentality of the halves is very different – the run out and the run home – and it’s the run home that really matters when your quality has put you one or two up at half time.

“It’s that lack of resilience that most shows up in a lack of cohesion between the lines, bad decision making and unforced errors. The number of times I’ve seen the Mariners turn away from the easy ball or best option, hit the ball out under no pressure, or generally play without a plan does my head in.

“And as soon as they concede they expect to lose, and play accordingly.”

The A-League’s salary cap is supposed to provide a form of social security, existing so the Mariners, more than any other club, aren’t left in the gutter. But there’s no insurance policy on what Deans’ terms “something rotten” seeping into the Mariners’ culture.

Star imports Ross McCormack, Kalifa Cisse and Tom Hiariej seemingly copped out this season through poor-form and persistent injury, while the likes of Andrew Hoole were caught out defying drinking bans.

The once so promising youth conveyor belt grinded to a halt as $500,000 per-year Daniel De Silva was loaned out after failing to deliver. Then there was the loss of Antony Golec – who Mulvey had claimed he wanted “to build a team around”. Golec said after his departure that he “wasn’t happy” at the club and that the Bolt saga “looks bad because of what the club has been through”.

Most devastating is the departure of Matt Millar, for free, to the Mariners’ F3 rivals. Millar’s departure, while likely symptomatic of the Central Coast’s slow grinding mechanics taking took far too long to muster a contract offer, is also a sign of the times.

Given the faint sight of dry land, Mariners will jump ship.

When you hear terms like “if nothing else” and “bottomless pit” creep into the CEO’s vernacular, it’s understandable why the club’s fans held up banners mocking over 300 days since their last win. If you’re one of the rusted-on that so fondly remembers the golden era, at some point you either have to laugh or cry.

An excruciated Matt Simon fronted the media after Central Coast threw away a 1-0 lead to lose 5-2 to Sydney FC in January, their eleventh match without a win.

"Nothing's changed," Simon said. "People are going to talk about how we started and the red card but it's not good enough, it's unacceptable.

“I don't know what the club's situation is on bringing new players in, obviously something has to change sooner or later or things are going to keep going the same."

The same breeding ground that bore fruit to Socceroos Michael Beauchamp, Alex Wilkinson, Danny Vukovic, Oliver Bozanic, Mile Jedinak, Bernie Ibini, Mustafa Amini, Tom Rogic, Mat Ryan and Trent Sainsbury over just six years has barely flowered since Rogic’s departure in 2013.

Yet Mielekamp insisted that their decline in youth development isn’t a sign that the Mariners have lost touch and are fostering an unhealthy culture.

“The A-league landscape changes every year,” he said.

“We don’t know what next year’s going to look like, Sydney FC and Western Sydney Wanderers change locations, they have to move around and lose some of their aspects – the landscape changes every year.

“Does it mean that we can’t be dynamic and innovative in our approach? Absolutely not, it’s what we’re here to do.

"Every time the A-league evolves, it creates new opportunities – we have the ability to create the opportunity for young players who can’t get the game time in other clubs because they’re sitting behind big marquees – with every change, there are new opportunities.

“If you look back at our history, we’ve been able to develop young players and have been successful. Still to this day, whenever the Socceroos play all the ex-Mariners get together, they take a photo and they send it back to the club with a lot of pride. The secret for us is that players who go on to bigger and better things after the Mariners have embraced Central Coast as a region and it’s allowed them to perform their best.

“The culture and academy in our first team is the recipe for success. It’s not an easy exercise, there’s no opportunity for mistakes, but I have every confidence that we’ll continue to take the right steps forward.”

Deans echoes that it all starts with community, but believes Mielekamp and Charlesworth have taken the wrong approach.

“All our promising youth sign for other clubs,” he says.

“The Mariners used to be known as the ‘community club’. That was only possible while the fans felt they had access to the coach and the team, to the extent that the team felt part of the community and the fans felt part of the team. That’s what we’ve lost.

“The rebuilding has to start with the coach and the fans. The club needs to invite the fans back in and require the players to be part of the community. Charlesworth didn’t want to sell, which is fair enough, but what has he done since?

“He forced out Okon just when he looked to be building something solid by refusing to spend money and then Mulvey with the same constraints.”

Charlesworth, who lives in England, has been widely criticised for his rare communication with the club’s fan base. While the Mariners aren’t last in A-league spending (that honour goes to the club that beat them 8-2 before Mulvey’s sacking), they have also consistently spent close to the bare minimum throughout Charlesworth’s tenure.

Whether that stands to change under an independent A-League model remains to be seen, however much of the damage has already been done. In addition to losing Walmsley, forcing out Okon and telling club icon John Hutchinson that he wasn’t wanted in an assistant coaching role, the club’s transfer strategy has seen a further desertion of the Mariners’ roots.

The Mariners’ academy - The Centre of Excellence - was purpose-built to ensure the club’s long-term success. Now four-years-old, the Mariners haven’t regularly featured a single player from the academy this season. Their latest signings, British youngsters Stephen Mallon and Sam Graham, were loaned from Championship side Sheffield United. While Mallon’s managed a single strike and generally adequate performances, Graham’s been widely criticised for not being up to the league’s quality.

Meanwhile, over the past two seasons, Millar, Jonathan Aspropotamitis, Trent Buhagiar, Lachlan Wales, Scott Galloway and Jake McGing have all departed for other A-League clubs or European opportunities.

It’s one of a series of Charlesworth decision that seems to distance the club from Australian football. The Mariners first appointed Harry Redknapp as a ‘football consultant’, only for the English gaffer to infamously call the club the ‘South Coast Mariners’ and admit he never had plans to travel Down Under.

The most recent is technical director Mike Phelan, who also lives in England and admitted that his other role as assistant coach of Manchester United takes up “all his time”.

Yet Mielekamp insists that the club are making the right appointments. It’s doubtful the CEO can exert any influence over Charlesworth’s decisions from the other side of the world. If he could, it’s unknown what he’d say.

Mielekamp’s expertise instead lies in the commercial realm. He knows how to sell ideas and the idea he’s selling is that the Mariners’ foundation remains strong.

“We’re making sure that the right people and personalities are coming to the club, every post is a winner and every inch is gained,” he says.

“We need to make sure we’re ensuring the financial sustainability of the club – that’s always first and foremost. A reckless decision could do us more harm than good.

“We do everything that we can, if we can do it, we will. If it’s simply having a player go and make a young kid smile, or raising awareness of critical campaigns, we’ll be there, every time.

“It really is, for us, about making sure everybody’s on the same path – focused on gaining every inch and the more inches we get, the further we go. It’s a tribute to our philosophy to focus on personality first and foremost. There is always more work to be done. Never not more work to be done.

“There’s plenty to do but it feels alright at the moment, like we’re making the right steps. But only time will tell.”

The club’s latest appointment, Alen Stajcic, is set to absorb scrutiny for the time being. He began to address on-field issues after the club’s 5-0 loss to Melbourne City, claiming the Mariners required “a better foundation, more stability and more depth”.

Whether he’ll address what appears to be a cultural shift at the club remains to be seen. This is the same coach that, albeit under much secrecy and controversy, was sacked from his last post for presiding over a “toxic culture”.

It’s enough to lead Deans to question whether the Mariners have a strategy at all.

“What exactly is the Mariners’ plan?” Deans asks.

“Sydney FC have a trademark. Victory and Perth play in a very predictable (but effective way). Melbourne City have the money and Mark Rudan has turned Wellington into an excellent team who are fun to watch.

“Something rotten has seeped into the Mariners since Arnie left and it will take a long time to fix, the way player contracts work.

“The famous spirit is gone and there’s no money for the sort of quality we need to rebuild both spirit and discipline. The right sort of manager needs time to sweep out the old and bring in the new to suit a new template.

“At the moment the Mariners are a dysfunctional football team and desperately need rebooting. Something really big needs to change.

“It’s hard to change the players; easy to change the coach; and really, really hard to change the owner.”

Terribly tiresome article. Constantly the same things are bring written. Where's the articles providing for how the club fixes it's issues.?

 

[Antlion]

yeah it's just a big summary really

 

[bikinigirl]

Terribly tiresome article. Constantly the same things are bring written. Where's the articles providing for how the club fixes it's issues.?

. i don't disagree ... the only problem is that the article has a whole heap of quotes from the CEO which suggests there isn't really a problem, just a few challenges (but hey, i think i lost concentration after a while)

. and once you cut through all the motherhood statements, the only problem identified is ... we are in a small market* (so it seems the council and fans are still the problem)

* that was my take out and there is no way i am re-reading all that to try and make sense of it

 

[Insertnamehere]

. i don't disagree ... the only problem is that the article has a whole heap of quotes from the CEO which suggests there isn't really a problem, just a few challenges (but hey, i think i lost concentration after a while)

. and once you cut through all the motherhood statements, the only problem identified is ... we are in a small market* (so it seems the council and fans are still the problem)

* that was my take out and there is no way i am re-reading all that to try and make sense of it

true i did kind of overlook that. and the article kind of links SM to a lack of successful at the executive level.

 

[Tevor]

true i did kind of overlook that. and the article kind of links SM to a lack of successful at the executive level.

Yes SM does not come out smelling of roses, only worked at one successful club for two years. Nothing in there we didn’t already know and discuss on here regularly.

Still no coach announced and no plan to fix the debacle, as mentioned in the article the silence is deafening. All other clubs not in the finals are moving and we are static.

 

[Antlion]

It's been less than a week. Happy not to be hasty. But once the ball starts rolling it needs to pick up momentum

 

[pjennings]

'It's a bottomless pit': Inside the decline of the Central Coast Mariners
By Lucas Radbourne May 1 2019 7:30AM
https://www.ftbl.com.au/news/its-a-...ne-of-the-central-coast-mariners-524463/page0

There are few more idyllic locations in world football than Central Coast Stadium.
Perched so close to pristine Brisbane Water that hard-driven shots can almost become seaborn, the ground eponymously referred to as Grahame Park holds the true meaning of the term ‘boutique’.

On match days the coastal sun casts a warm glow upon canary Mariners colours. Shaded by overhanging palm trees, in any capital city this would be millionaire-territory: a place reserved for the finer things and the too-often drab, precious individuals who possess them.

But as Mariners CEO, Shaun Mielekamp suggests, this isn’t camera-snapping Sydney harbour or the espresso-swilling docks of Melbourne. This is the smallest market in Australian sport, where small-town ethos is both their greatest strength and biggest disadvantage.

“Culture is everything for us, that’s the primary focus,” Mielekamp says. We’re speaking less than a month after new coach Mike Mulvey’s first match, an 8-2 hiding at the hands of bitter rivals, Newcastle Jets.

“We’ve got a responsibility to represent the Central Coast on a national stage, to add profile to those organisations that are doing a great job on the Coast: Cancer Council, Surf Lifesaving - it’s in all walks; radio stations, newspapers, they all play a part in our community engagement.

“Community is key to our success.”

It’s understandable that Mielekamp, a former marketing and merchandising boffin in the NRL, wants to steer the conversation towards community. The ‘community club’, as the Mariners call themselves, have always been at the forefront of the A-League’s public engagement, with great success.

However, just as success becomes hollow without community, community becomes depressive without success.

Two Premierships, a Championship and three runners-up medals between 2007 and 2013 are fading reminders of a dominant era for the Mariners that surprised everyone, most of all the Coast’s locals, who had been unable to sustain a national sporting club throughout the region’s history.

Gosfordians - an eclectic mix of strolling retirees and preening tattooed surfers – have earned a reputation for not taking life too seriously. The would-be rugby heartland’s unusual relationship with football, characterised best by the Mariners’ historically testy relationship with local council, is only one reason why few mementos to the good ol’ days adorn the Mariners’ home turf.

The surrounding Grahame Park is named after Gosford’s first mayor, William Calman Grahame, a Maitland-native who was expelled from the Labor Party and left politics after a series of corruption allegations. Inside the stadium, the name of failed NRL bid ‘Central Coast Bears’ still marks the stadium seating, despite the Mariners solely representing Gosford on the national stage for the last 15 years.

On match days, beyond the now sparsely-populated stadia, giant, inflatable sauce bottles block out a million-dollar view of the ocean. There’s even, on special occasions, a Masterfoods blimp.

Once upon a time, this unique atmosphere made the club’s achievements all-the-more incredible. They’re the fool that rushed in where every other code feared to tread and, in the process, gifted a rich sporting history to a town so periodically overlooked.

But if you think the sun always shines on the carefree inhabitants of Gosford, you’re wrong. There are storm clouds on the horizon.

In a salary-capped league, Central Coast have finished in the bottom-three for each of the past five seasons, failing to register a blip on the competition since the departure of now-Socceroos boss Graham Arnold.

Their decline began under previous owner Peter Turnbull, when it was revealed in early 2013 that players were on the brink of walking away due to unpaid wages. The famously unified Mariners dressing room had fractured and the club – which were still second in the league – were teetering on the verge of collapse.

The saviour was long-term shareholder Mike Charlesworth, an English businessman and Leeds United fanatic, who had already witnessed the devastating effect of a club’s decline into financial ruin. After paying Turnbull’s debts, an empathetic Charlesworth launched a widespread campaign, seeking long-term investment from the famously tight-belted local government, cash-strapped FFA and unnamed foreign investors.

“I don't think it's right that an individual from England should be carrying the financial can for football on the (Central) coast,” Charlesworth told the Mariners’ website in 2015.

“There are a number of people we'll be asking to come forward, but we're very confident of a successful future for the Mariners, put it that way.

“We've got a great tradition now, a great heart, a great culture, and that will continue. We're not any less ambitious that anyone else, perhaps we're more ambitious. Success breeds success. That will continue.”

Despite Charlesworth’s rally-cries, warning signals began to sound when financial stability, with the view of onselling the club, couldn’t result in outside investment. Ultimately it was two months from December 2013 to January 2014 that broke the Mariners: 62 days that became the darkest in an ever-darkening history for the club.

The downturn began when club icon Patrick Zwaanswijk retired, before Arnold and renowned sports scientist Andrew Clark took posts at Japanese club Vegalta Sendai. Star import Marco Flores then ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament, while then-reigning Team of the Season entrant Michael McGlinchey, future Socceroo Trent Sainsbury and record-goalscorer Daniel McBreen continued a mass exodus.

In return, the Mariners recruited unusually poorly; bringing in Eddy Bosnar, Glen Trifiro, Matt Sim, Isaaka Cernak and short-lived K-League winger Kim Seung-Yong. This ushered in a series of short-lived foreign signings and Fortress Gosford, which had stood test to Asia’s biggest clubs throughout the Mariners’ hey-day, subsequently fell. Five years later and the club is still trying to claw it back.

Now a passionate Mariners fan, whose social media abounds with photos of his son in yellow and navy, Mielekamp missed the golden years. Upon taking the role of CEO in 2015, the Mariners had slipped from third position to eighth and were in the midst of a 10-player cleanout.

His tenure has overseen a second eighth-placed finish and three wooden spoons, in one of the starkest turnarounds in Australian sport. From the A-League’s inception until the 2013 Grand Final, the Mariners were the best side in the competition, playing 195 games, winning 85 and scoring 310 points. From 2013 until February this year, the Mariners played 156 matches and won only 31, earning 128 points. Their rivals, Newcastle, are the next worst: 53 points better off.

It’s a shocking decline nobody at Central Coast expected, but it’s a familiar story for Mielekamp. During his time at South Sydney Rabbitohs the club only finished as high as seventh, while in four years at Penrith Panthers they only finished above 11th once.

Mielekamp’s luck finally appeared to change when he jumped ship to the A-League as commercial manager of Western Sydney Wanderers. But after two successful years in the role, the Wanderers slumped to ninth place and Mielekamp again departed to take up his fifth role in eight years at the helm of the Mariners.

Now, with extensive experience trying to sell a distant ideal to frustrated fans of an underperforming team, he insists that listening is the most important part.

“The community, because we’re close and engaged, you hear it all – the good, the bad, the indifferent,” he says. “It’s been really rewarding to hear how many people are passionately still with us – they’re supportive of the journey we’re going on and those things really buoy you.

“But they’re not afraid to tell you when they’re not happy as well and we’ve got to take that on board and listen, if nothing else. Make sure we take the time to listen and understand.

“Anyone who engages the Mariners brand needs to understand how they can help us grow – every time we go to a school we need to turn them into fans, they need ticket offers and to know where the stadium is, it’s about doing the right thing. You’ve got to believe if you do the right thing, the right thing will happen to you as well.

“We’re doing as much as our resources and manpower allow. Is it enough? It’s never enough. There’s never enough good stuff that we can do out there, we’ve got to keep doing more. I think we reached well over 10,000 kids in schools last season.

“But it’s not enough, it’s a bottomless pit…”

Gosfordians used to know where the Mariners’ stadium was. In 2007/08 Central Coast, under the stewardship of Lawrie McKinna, averaged over 15,000 people per match. Their Grand Final drew a 36,000-strong against Newcastle Jets.

Flash forward and this season is the Mariners’ worst on record. Just 6,000 trundle through the gates at Gosford, while this season’s highest attendance is only half of 2007’s average. Central Coast crowds are no longer joyously apathetic, they’re turning away in droves. Many are irate, but the worst are mocking.

The fans who thought it couldn’t get any worse under the undisciplined guise of Tony Walmsley sat through 20 losses in 24 matches this season. This ratio surpasses New Zealand Knights - a club that lasted two seasons before it folded - for the worst losing record in A-League history.

Mike Mulvey, a coach whose previous A-League tenure resulted in a Premiership / Championship double, won just five per-cent of his matches with the club.

"It's actually quite embarrassing as coaches and players to walk around Gosford and Terrigal because we want to be able to give the fans something to cheer about," Mulvey said a month before his sacking.

The English coach faced a titanic task at Central Coast. Gushing beneath pervasive rumours of backroom bust-ups and player desertions, a slew of simple undercurrents prevented the Mariners from winning matches.

While Mulvey replaced Paul Okon in April 2018, he suffered a pre-season devilled by the arrival of Usain Bolt, a publicity ploy which backfired immensely.

“We never rule out a marquee,” Mielekamp said a few months before Bolt’s arrival.

“We proved with Luis Garcia that it’s not a possibility, it’s about the right person at the right time and what’s financially realistic. Some of the figures you hear out there at the moment…,” he laughed, “some of these things are impossible.”

“There is a marquee fund and if the right person comes along, we’ll make the right decision for our community.”

That ‘right person’ for a moment appeared to be the Jamaican sprinter. He came in swaggering with bravado and became a fixture on the nightly news. He conquered the Australian media in Mariners colours for a day, but then left unceremoniously, refusing to accept a contract offer from a club that he was never good enough to play for in the beginning.

Bolt briefly salvaged broader community interest in the Mariners, but ultimately left behind a hollow feeling and the stench of desperation. It was a patterned shift from a club that on the back of their own youth development had previously dominated the A-League.

In the shadow of the $100 million Tuggerah Centre of Excellence, the Mariners sold-out, and in the process, lost a part of their identity.

Central Coast tragic and author of ‘Lawrie McKinna’s Dangerous Truth’, Adrian Deans, says Bolt’s trial represents a shift in the Mariners’ hierarchy’s approach.

“The team is playing badly which is a major turn off for many, but there is no great communicator like McKinna to go on giving hope and showing the road ahead,” Deans says.

“Instead we get silence from the likes of Mike Charlesworth and Mielekamp, or pathetic stunts like the Bolt farce which completely distracted from our pre-season.

“Mulvey must have been fuming as that unfolded, just as he fumed as his underfunded and misfiring team limp to second place every week.

“There is just no mental toughness when the hard work needs to be done in the second half. The mentality of the halves is very different – the run out and the run home – and it’s the run home that really matters when your quality has put you one or two up at half time.

“It’s that lack of resilience that most shows up in a lack of cohesion between the lines, bad decision making and unforced errors. The number of times I’ve seen the Mariners turn away from the easy ball or best option, hit the ball out under no pressure, or generally play without a plan does my head in.

“And as soon as they concede they expect to lose, and play accordingly.”

The A-League’s salary cap is supposed to provide a form of social security, existing so the Mariners, more than any other club, aren’t left in the gutter. But there’s no insurance policy on what Deans’ terms “something rotten” seeping into the Mariners’ culture.

Star imports Ross McCormack, Kalifa Cisse and Tom Hiariej seemingly copped out this season through poor-form and persistent injury, while the likes of Andrew Hoole were caught out defying drinking bans.

The once so promising youth conveyor belt grinded to a halt as $500,000 per-year Daniel De Silva was loaned out after failing to deliver. Then there was the loss of Antony Golec – who Mulvey had claimed he wanted “to build a team around”. Golec said after his departure that he “wasn’t happy” at the club and that the Bolt saga “looks bad because of what the club has been through”.

Most devastating is the departure of Matt Millar, for free, to the Mariners’ F3 rivals. Millar’s departure, while likely symptomatic of the Central Coast’s slow grinding mechanics taking took far too long to muster a contract offer, is also a sign of the times.

Given the faint sight of dry land, Mariners will jump ship.

When you hear terms like “if nothing else” and “bottomless pit” creep into the CEO’s vernacular, it’s understandable why the club’s fans held up banners mocking over 300 days since their last win. If you’re one of the rusted-on that so fondly remembers the golden era, at some point you either have to laugh or cry.

An excruciated Matt Simon fronted the media after Central Coast threw away a 1-0 lead to lose 5-2 to Sydney FC in January, their eleventh match without a win.

"Nothing's changed," Simon said. "People are going to talk about how we started and the red card but it's not good enough, it's unacceptable.

“I don't know what the club's situation is on bringing new players in, obviously something has to change sooner or later or things are going to keep going the same."

The same breeding ground that bore fruit to Socceroos Michael Beauchamp, Alex Wilkinson, Danny Vukovic, Oliver Bozanic, Mile Jedinak, Bernie Ibini, Mustafa Amini, Tom Rogic, Mat Ryan and Trent Sainsbury over just six years has barely flowered since Rogic’s departure in 2013.

Yet Mielekamp insisted that their decline in youth development isn’t a sign that the Mariners have lost touch and are fostering an unhealthy culture.

“The A-league landscape changes every year,” he said.

“We don’t know what next year’s going to look like, Sydney FC and Western Sydney Wanderers change locations, they have to move around and lose some of their aspects – the landscape changes every year.

“Does it mean that we can’t be dynamic and innovative in our approach? Absolutely not, it’s what we’re here to do.

"Every time the A-league evolves, it creates new opportunities – we have the ability to create the opportunity for young players who can’t get the game time in other clubs because they’re sitting behind big marquees – with every change, there are new opportunities.

“If you look back at our history, we’ve been able to develop young players and have been successful. Still to this day, whenever the Socceroos play all the ex-Mariners get together, they take a photo and they send it back to the club with a lot of pride. The secret for us is that players who go on to bigger and better things after the Mariners have embraced Central Coast as a region and it’s allowed them to perform their best.

“The culture and academy in our first team is the recipe for success. It’s not an easy exercise, there’s no opportunity for mistakes, but I have every confidence that we’ll continue to take the right steps forward.”

Deans echoes that it all starts with community, but believes Mielekamp and Charlesworth have taken the wrong approach.

“All our promising youth sign for other clubs,” he says.

“The Mariners used to be known as the ‘community club’. That was only possible while the fans felt they had access to the coach and the team, to the extent that the team felt part of the community and the fans felt part of the team. That’s what we’ve lost.

“The rebuilding has to start with the coach and the fans. The club needs to invite the fans back in and require the players to be part of the community. Charlesworth didn’t want to sell, which is fair enough, but what has he done since?

“He forced out Okon just when he looked to be building something solid by refusing to spend money and then Mulvey with the same constraints.”

Charlesworth, who lives in England, has been widely criticised for his rare communication with the club’s fan base. While the Mariners aren’t last in A-league spending (that honour goes to the club that beat them 8-2 before Mulvey’s sacking), they have also consistently spent close to the bare minimum throughout Charlesworth’s tenure.

Whether that stands to change under an independent A-League model remains to be seen, however much of the damage has already been done. In addition to losing Walmsley, forcing out Okon and telling club icon John Hutchinson that he wasn’t wanted in an assistant coaching role, the club’s transfer strategy has seen a further desertion of the Mariners’ roots.

The Mariners’ academy - The Centre of Excellence - was purpose-built to ensure the club’s long-term success. Now four-years-old, the Mariners haven’t regularly featured a single player from the academy this season. Their latest signings, British youngsters Stephen Mallon and Sam Graham, were loaned from Championship side Sheffield United. While Mallon’s managed a single strike and generally adequate performances, Graham’s been widely criticised for not being up to the league’s quality.

Meanwhile, over the past two seasons, Millar, Jonathan Aspropotamitis, Trent Buhagiar, Lachlan Wales, Scott Galloway and Jake McGing have all departed for other A-League clubs or European opportunities.

It’s one of a series of Charlesworth decision that seems to distance the club from Australian football. The Mariners first appointed Harry Redknapp as a ‘football consultant’, only for the English gaffer to infamously call the club the ‘South Coast Mariners’ and admit he never had plans to travel Down Under.

The most recent is technical director Mike Phelan, who also lives in England and admitted that his other role as assistant coach of Manchester United takes up “all his time”.

Yet Mielekamp insists that the club are making the right appointments. It’s doubtful the CEO can exert any influence over Charlesworth’s decisions from the other side of the world. If he could, it’s unknown what he’d say.

Mielekamp’s expertise instead lies in the commercial realm. He knows how to sell ideas and the idea he’s selling is that the Mariners’ foundation remains strong.

“We’re making sure that the right people and personalities are coming to the club, every post is a winner and every inch is gained,” he says.

“We need to make sure we’re ensuring the financial sustainability of the club – that’s always first and foremost. A reckless decision could do us more harm than good.

“We do everything that we can, if we can do it, we will. If it’s simply having a player go and make a young kid smile, or raising awareness of critical campaigns, we’ll be there, every time.

“It really is, for us, about making sure everybody’s on the same path – focused on gaining every inch and the more inches we get, the further we go. It’s a tribute to our philosophy to focus on personality first and foremost. There is always more work to be done. Never not more work to be done.

“There’s plenty to do but it feels alright at the moment, like we’re making the right steps. But only time will tell.”

The club’s latest appointment, Alen Stajcic, is set to absorb scrutiny for the time being. He began to address on-field issues after the club’s 5-0 loss to Melbourne City, claiming the Mariners required “a better foundation, more stability and more depth”.

Whether he’ll address what appears to be a cultural shift at the club remains to be seen. This is the same coach that, albeit under much secrecy and controversy, was sacked from his last post for presiding over a “toxic culture”.

It’s enough to lead Deans to question whether the Mariners have a strategy at all.

“What exactly is the Mariners’ plan?” Deans asks.

“Sydney FC have a trademark. Victory and Perth play in a very predictable (but effective way). Melbourne City have the money and Mark Rudan has turned Wellington into an excellent team who are fun to watch.

“Something rotten has seeped into the Mariners since Arnie left and it will take a long time to fix, the way player contracts work.

“The famous spirit is gone and there’s no money for the sort of quality we need to rebuild both spirit and discipline. The right sort of manager needs time to sweep out the old and bring in the new to suit a new template.

“At the moment the Mariners are a dysfunctional football team and desperately need rebooting. Something really big needs to change.

“It’s hard to change the players; easy to change the coach; and really, really hard to change the owner.”

I don't think there is much in the article that we haven't heard before. It seems to be based largely on talking to Adrian Deans aka Lawrie's biographer.

Of course it will highlight the difference between when Lawrie was here and now. But realistically Lawrie did the hard yards with the Community early, a truly remarkable effort, but then he joined the Council and was then worse than useless for the Mariners in that role. At the same time the Community aspect suffered with Arnold here as he attempted to make us more professional but also put us further into debt (again with Lawrie still very involved with the club). It must be remembered that this happened before the Charlesworth buyout which happened if I remember correctly just prior to the Championship win .

The fact that even a winning team did not get us back to the large crowds of the summer of 2007-2008 should have raised alarm bells even back then.

 

[priorpeter]

An article strewn with inaccuracies, picking up on quotes from previous conferences/articles and ripping off terms like “irate mocking” from other articles from months ago. Next.

 

[Capn Gus Bloodbeard]

Just thinking about next season.....how would people feel about the new season strip echoing our S1 strip?
Or would that be too reminiscent of Mulvey's failed 'bring the culture back' approach?