Time in wilderness inspires Mulvey’s Mariners mission

Older and much wiser, Central Coast coach Mike Mulvey has no regrets about his time in football’s wilderness

Mike Mulvey with headline signing Usain Bolt. Picture: Getty Images

Older and much wiser, Central Coast coach Mike Mulvey has no regrets about the amount of time he was forced to spend in what some might regard as football wilderness.

It might have been four years of marking time in Malaysia and Thailand, but it allowed Mulvey to re-evaluate, to look beyond the sometimes insular world of Australian soccer.

It shouldn’t have come to this. In 2014, the Englishman, a self-confessed Manchester United tragic, had been at the top of his game having guided Brisbane Roar to the A-League’s Premier’s Plate-Championship double on the way to being named coach of the year.

Just six months later, Mulvey found himself on the scrapheap — unceremoniously dumped just six games into the new season.

There was bewilderment and disappointment on his part, but he conducted himself with dignity, refusing to launch into criticism of the club. To this day, he continues to deflect because there is no point in going over old ground.

“That’s football. I’m old enough and ugly enough to understand what football is about and sometimes you come across unpleasantries in all kinds of life,” he tells The Weekend Australian as he stares out over Terrigal Beach.

“I was very proud of what I achieved at Brisbane. I loved the place, the fans. Of course, I would have liked to still be there.

“But you have to pick yourself up and away you go again.”

That meant finding a new direction in Thailand and Malaysia, something some might have considered the end of the line where he would become one of the forgotten men of Australian soccer.

Mulvey never saw it that way.

“I was sure I could come back (to coaching in the A-League). The perception is what you are talking about but my reality is that I was coaching at a good level and doing football research in England when I was in between jobs,” he says.

“My passion and love had not dwindled at all. In fact it has improved because I have experienced new cultures, different ways of playing game and I have enjoyed that. I have a much bigger perspective now.”

Mulvey’s faith in his own ability was eventually rewarded when he was handed the reins at the Mariners for this season. He could not have set himself a bigger task.

Champions in the 2012-13 season under Graham Arnold and semi-finalists the following season, the decline has been swift and alarming. Three coaches have come and gone in the past four seasons, the club has twice finished with the wooden spoon and they have won just 17 of their past 108 games.

They are frightening statistics that Mulvey knows only too well but stats he is far from put off by.

“From my time with the Roar I knew the Mariners were a club with grit and fight that achieved remarkable success with far less financial and training resources. It is amazing what they did given the community is, what, just 300,000 compared to the might of clubs like Melbourne Victory and Sydney FC,” Mulvey said.

“They are a community inspired club and I want to get back to the core values of the club. We want to re-engage in all areas on and off the field.”

It is why Mulvey has brought back the likes of Matty Simon and Michael McGlinchey to the playing squad and enlisted off field support from former players Nick Montgomery, Patrick Zwaanswijk and Mile Sterjovski.

Critically, he is also getting huge support from Mariners owner Mike Charlesworth who, it is fair to say, has hardly endeared himself to the club faithful in recent times because of his refusal to inject much needed funds into the club.

But Charlesworth, who once infamously ordered one of his coaches to play entertaining football and didn’t care if it meant the team didn’t win games, has opened the purse strings.

The recent signings of striker Ross McCormack and Socceroo Tommy Oar signify a huge shift in his thinking.

“Mike has been great,” Mulvey says. “I speak to him on a weekly basis, sometimes more. There is no interference. He knows it is a big job and he has given me every support.”

Mulvey insists he has set no goals for the club.

“That’s for everyone else (outside of the club) to decide,” Mulvey said. “There are no limits to what we can achieve because then it becomes a ceiling and I don’t believe in that.”