Magpies swoop on former international Ian Stanger
A World Cup player for Scotland in 1999, Ian Stanger arrives at Camberwell Magpies will extensive experience in WA and NSW cricket.
Local Sport
Don't miss out on the headlines from Local Sport . Followed categories will be added to My News.
The Camberwell Magpies have locked in their new head coach, completing all Premier Cricket appointments for the 2020-21 season.
The Magpies have signed Ian Stanger as the replacement for former Tasmanian Brad Loveluck, who stood down after two years.
Retired first-class paceman Andrew Fekete will captain the club.
Stanger, 48, arrives at the Camberwell Magpies with much experience in playing and coaching.
From Scotland, he represented his country on five occasions at ODI level, with four of his appearances coming in the 1999 World Cup in England.
After debuting in 1992, his List A career spanned 14 years and took in 77 matches across stints in Scotland, Leicestershire and Durham.
He also notched seven first-class matches before finishing with professional cricket in 2006.
Stanger moved to Australia in 2008 and began playing in WA Premier Cricket. He had a number of captaincy and coaching roles in the WACA and the NSW Premier competitions.
Helming Claremont-Nedlands in WA in 2012, he led the club to an unprecedented period of success.
Stanger has been in Melbourne for three years and was waiting for an opportunity at Premier level.
“I’ve been working between Sydney and Melbourne some of the time and doing a lot of commuting which made it impossible to commit to a club coaching role,’’ he told Leader.
“I got made redundant at the end of April from my main work and I turned my attention to my second fiddle and my first love, cricket.
“I found out that Andrew Fekete was going to be captain. He’d retired form the Victorian state side and I asked a few contacts of mine back in WA who knew a bit more about the first-class team, and got some good reports. I thought straight away that this would be not just a good club to join but also the opportunity to work with a professional set-up.
“You don’t often get a first-class player coming back to club cricket like that and committing to a major role like first-grade skipper — he might retire altogether or might just fade out gracefully.’’
The Magpies were disappointing in 2019-20, finishing 11th.
“A few places in the table isn’t really what we need to be about here, if you want to be a successful club you need to draw a line in the sand,’’ Stanger said.
“You’ve got to change some fundamental things about how you want the club to be successful, and by that I mean top-two or three, and aim to win and even build a side that over a few years might dominate the competition.
“In the course of my appointment, I met a number of people from the club who set their ambitions. There is a feeling that there is going to be a period in the next couple of years, with some good youngsters coming through that there is an opportunity to mould something here.’’
Magpies head of cricket operations Barry Russ said the club was delighted to secure Stanger.
“Ian arrives at our club with a wealth of experience and demonstrated success at various levels within the elite cricket pathway,’’ he said.
“With a talented playing list at his disposal, we hope Ian will be able to replicate his coaching achievements from other clubs here with us at Camberwell.
“The club undertook an extensive search for a new head coach following Brad Loveluck’s decision to stand down at the end of the 2019-20 season. Brad has elected to take a year off coaching this season to refresh and reinvigorate himself after seven consecutive years coaching at Premier level both here at the Camberwell Magpies and in Tasmania.
“We wish Brad all the very best for his future endeavours and acknowledge the wonderful contribution he made as our head coach for the previous two seasons.
“We’re obviously living in unprecedented times at the moment and there is a degree of uncertainty around what the future holds in terms of the next few months leading into the season proper, so having someone with Ian’s experience and knowledge of the game to guide us through this pre-season period and beyond will be extremely important.’’
The Magpies have fingers crossed they will regain emerging paceman Sam Elliott from Fitzroy-Doncaster.
The son of club great and former Test man Matthew Elliott is a Victorian rookie.
He began playing in the Magpies’ lower grades at a young age.
MORE PREMIER CRICKET