What a couple of weeks its been... for the Mariners team, coaching staff, background staff and us poor supporters.
In case you don't know I should explain, the Central Coast Mariners are a soccer team who play in the A-League at Bluetongue Stadium on the NSW Central Coast. They are the smallest club in the competition in terms of their potential supporter catchment area (I believe that the Central Coast population is 300k approx. compared to Sydney's population of roughly. 4.6 million for example).
This means that they play with a smaller budget, often with no marquee players and with a smaller group of active fans. Yet they are arguably the most consistent if not successful team in the league's history having scored more points cumulatively than any other team, won the Premiership twice and been Championship runners up three times.
Unfortunately there have been some bumps along the way with a couple of incidents of financial woes causing the players and staff to go without being paid on time in seasons past. The owners of the club have talked about investment discussions being held, first of all with Russian investors and then with Asian investors but none have proven to be fruitful so far. Having said that I think most fans thought that days of players not being paid was behind the club... until two weeks ago when it happened again.
It seems unbelievable that this team who are reigning Premiership winners and currently second in the league this season, who are guaranteed a place in the grand finals this year and who are the only team to represent the A-league in the Asian Champions League this year could still be struggling to pay their players and staff's salaries.
Well after two weeks of honestly wondering if this could be the end of the team that I and my family have enjoyed supporting since we arrived in Australia it seems that the Mariners financial troubles could at last be resolved (at least for the foreseeable future). English businessman Mike Charlesworth has injected a rumoured 5 million dollars into the Mariners coffers and with it has gained a majority ownership.
Unfortunately the chance for the Mariners to win the Premiership has passed this year and with one game to go we already know that Western Sydney will win that title and the Mariners will have to settle for second spot. Would it have been different without the players having to worry about how they were going to support themselves and their families financially...? I guess we'll never know.
Never mind... the spirit of the team and players has always been seen as they reason for the Mariners unlikely success and whilst the Premiership has already been decided there's no reason the Mariners can't try to break their Championship hoodoo this year. Onwards to the Finals Series!!!
I'll be posting updates here on how the Mariners go in the Finals Series for 2013, hopefully you'll enjoy reading along as they go on to win it! (What's that?... ah yes you might be right, could be tempting fate there...)
- Scott Copland
Good article.
ReplyDelete