‘Drop ten, turn and Face.’ Quilty’s Football Yarns 13 Coaching in OZ – The beginning 1993-4

‘Drop ten, turn and Face.’ Quilty’s Football Yarns 13

Coaching in OZ – The beginning

1993-4

Living in Berowra but working in Blacktown was a logistical challenge. A journey of exactly 40km either way. When I first started at the school the M2 had not been constructed so I needed to scan across country to get there. Fortunately, it was a journey against the traffic usually taking 50 minutes either way. Being firmly in the west of Sydney, Blacktown had an average temperature 2-3 degrees above where we lived. Add to that the inconvenience of driving an old Mazda lacking air-conditioning and often I’d require a change of clothes arriving at work. John Paul II Senior School had co-ed 1150 students and about 100 staff. It was a good school that truly practiced what it preached. Students were able to achieve in a number of ways, be it Performing Arts through Rock Eisteddfod, Sport or Academia, the college had it covered.

When I arrived at JPII the Headmaster, Michael Carr, explained that it was school that was currently performing very well in Rugby League but had not got towards its potential with Football. Being a large Catholic school it had a broad ethnic make-up, Anglos, Italians, Croats, Philippino’s and Maltese all being well represented.

The school was involved in probably the strongest schools competition in the country, the ten team ‘Metropolitan Catholic School’s’ league, the MCS. Some truly heavy weight schools took part predominantly form the west and south west of Sydney. Eastwood, Fairfield, Parramatta, Emu Plains, Greystanes, Campbelltown, Ryde, Dundas and Auburn made up the draw. It was a Thursday afternoon competition of nine round matches before semi-finals and finals for the top four. Each school had an A & B Grade side kick off times being 1 O’clock and 3 O’clock. This play off finals format was something completely new to me, not being the way in the UK, where if you came top of the competition you won the league.

At my first training session I was accompanied by Di Kosak, one of the college office staff. She had a big local involvement in Football, knew the players, which schools they had come from and more importantly which clubs they were involved with in addition to JPII.

About eighty players turned up that first session trilling for 32 places in the A & B Grade squads. I had never experienced such a turn out but made a good early call when I said that the trials would take place across three sessions.

At my job interview Michael Carr had told me what a strong, skilful competition the MCS was. His Rugby League boys played in a parallel version of ours. The main difference being that theirs was probably more prestigious and the games were often shown on Television, especially in the Nationwide Commonwealth Bank Cup. He threw a tough question at me saying, “I am aware that potentially we have a very skilful side, what will you do to make us winners of the MCS?”

My answer was a good one. I said, “You telling me that the whole competition is strong and skilful. I will just have to get our sides working harder and become fitter than all the rest in the competition. That was exactly what I did.

In my first season coaching at the school in 1993 we won seven of nine A Grade games with just one draw and a defeat in the regular season, finishing in number one spot. Many of our boys were also playing for good club representative teams that included Marconi, Sydney United and Sydney Olympic. While this was good it also made claims on the player’s time so that our training was restricted to an hour on Monday afternoon. A good choice because that was also the day for JPII after school staff meetings. From the beginning I had the bosses blessing to be absent. He said, “It’s not as if you are down the pub. You are on School business taking the boys training”. Michael also appreciated the 80km round trip I made to JPII each day.

Our B Grade side managed to make the play offs in 1993 with a fourth place finish. Our only A Grade defeat was early on out at St Gregory’s Campbelltown. A bit of an ambush on a small pitch. However, that was an invaluable lesson because it was the side we would eventually win through to play out at Melita Stadium, Granville, in the MCS A Grade final. That A Grade side was predominantly Year 12 boys with only two Year 11’. This made us very experienced and strong. As said previously, all the sides in the MCS were skilful, I just insisted that we continually got back ‘goal-side’, not something all players liked or appreciated. One player, Tony Messina tended to jog trot his recoveries, often walking. In this particular game I shouted to him. “Tony are you injured?” “No sir, why is that?”. “Ok mate, off you come!”. Tony was flabbergasted, he’d never been withdrawn from the field before. Another good lesson. Every time following that game I’d only have to shout “Tony” and he’d immediately start to run and work back.

Working around the world, in the UK, Israel and the USA had fully exposed me to interaction with a whole mix of creeds and ethnicities. Working out at Blacktown was to be no different other than to throw in a few new ones. Italians, Greeks, Maltese, Lebanese and Croatians to name a few. Fortunately we were all speaking the same language, the language of the world game, football. In this 1993 A Grade side there were several of the best players I had ever worked with. One, Daniel Matan was a two footed central midfielder able to surge at pace making rapid inroads into opposition defences. As we went through the season a small irritation with him emerged, mainly because his dad, always there in support,  would stand by the fence and shout out instructions. I’d never had a problem with that but in this case the instructions were in Croat! I felt that this was potentially undermining, so I had to address it, telling his dad that input was fine but it had to be in English. As explained Daniel was a fine player. He was playing for the Sydney United U18 side at 16. Unfortunately, at many of the NPL clubs, politics played a big role. Daniel’s dad just happened to fall out with club football committee and his son Daniel had to leave the club. This 1993 season ended up being one where we almost swept the board. We won both the MCS A & B Grade finals but should also have won the NSWCCC Cup Final, losing in the semi-final. In the event, the eventual winners Fairfield, were a side we had beaten in Round One 4-0! Somehow, they were allowed back in to the competition when someone forfeited and ended up beating us 2-1 in the semi-final. The competition convenor had made a call to benefit the knock out, we just happened to come off worse for it. In the following seasons I actually became the convenor of the NSWCCC Cup and myself almost paid a big price for trying to be fair to the sides and players involved. In this case I got a call from a school coach form Casula, who told me one of his players had been unfairly red carded in a game. Hating the possibility of a player being unfairly treated and possibly missing out on a final, I called the opposition coach for confirmation. In a sporting spirit that coach concurred, saying that the red card was wrong. With this in mind I took the decision to rescind the card, freeing him up for the next round. Jump forward several cup rounds to the semi-final stage and I get a call from Oakhill College telling me that their player, Tony Mitiga had been unfairly dismissed and was down to miss the final. Looking at their potential opponents Casula, I realised that this was the team whose player I had re-instated. Making a quick call to their coach I explained the red card situation for Mitiga and also reminded him of the benefit they had got with the earlier rescinded red card. To his credit the coach quickly agreed to let the player play in the final. I personally felt a kind of satisfaction that two players had now got to play in possibly the biggest school match of their lives. That was of course until Mitiga scored a very early goal in the final! Fortunately Casula came back to win but you see how it could have been a bit awkward.

As an Englishman in Western Sydney I was up for taking any coaching opportunities that arose. One such opportunity was to be involved with the MCS and ultimately the NSWCCC Representative teams. Those I worked alongside were great, passionate servants of the game but I almost fell out with one administrator when the Trials were being held down at Cronulla. We had played the selection tournament and were now wrapping up before announcing a sixteen player squad that had been picked. I offered to go around to take the nets down and pack up ready for us to make the long journey home.

It was a surprise then, that when I returned ten minutes later, one of the squad names had mysteriously changed with a player associated with the administrator being substituted in! After my initial shock I had to say something. The squad was about to be announced but I didn’t care. Taking him aside I said that if this was going to be the way the association ran, I wanted nothing to do with it. His immediate suggestion was to put the player back in and run 17 not 16. I agreed but had had an insight into the politics of School Rep football.

While that 1993 season of success at JPII was brilliant, it was the beginning of an amazing run of success in MCS finals all played out at Melita Stadium, Granville. It was a bit of a shock then when our 1994 side bombed out of the finals series in both grades. Di Kozak had stepped down from the manager’s role to be replaced by fellow teacher Tina Tasioulas. Having virtually a whole new squad we certainly had good players but never quite got it together. It was just as well then that some of the female students came forward and suggested that we form a JPII U18 women’s side to enter the new MCCS competition in 1994. Karen Portelli, the sister of our 1993 centre forward, Robbie Portelli led the way along with Kelly O’Neill another of our Year 12 students. Both had played good club football in the Blacktown area. This was personally my first experience of coaching a women’s side. How would I approach it? There was only one way and that was exactly the same as with the men’s sides. In the event this always proved a good move for me across my 15 seasons involved with women’s sides. Terrie always laughs out loud when I roll out a very serious but heart felt personal expression. When asked about men’s and women’s football I always say, ‘’I don’t see gender when it comes to football, I just see players”. Corny as it sounds that is exactly how I will see it. My passion and commitment to football is a constant regardless of the side I am coaching. I have always believed that it is an aspect of leadership. Players and by association, their parents, appreciate that I take it seriously.

To get together a squad for our girls U18 side, we did it exactly the same way as with the boys, we held a series of afternoon trials for anyone interested. One thing I learnt quite early in football was that if someone is an achiever in one sport at a high level, they will often be able to adapt well to football. There were several cases in point with this side. Kelly O’Neill introduced me to Lyneene Clarke who currently played softball for Australia. Lyneene Clarke was 5ft 10in and looked a strong individual. In the conversation that followed I said that I was about to type-cast her and make her a centre back. When she said I don’t know what a centre back does, I said don’t worry we will teach you! Another potential player was Marijana Almasi who was a fine State ranked gymnast. We also had a two girls who were dancers and another Elizabeth Migdalski who was a boxer. The position we always struggled to fill was goalkeeper. At JPII we fortunately developed such a dominant side we got away with it. In 1994, the MCCS competition consisted of eight sides. Conveniently, all the games were played at the same venue out at Auburn. The hosts, St Leo’s, Wakeley, Emu Plains, Mercy Parramatta, Westmead, Greystanes and ourselves made up the eight. Only losing a single game in the competition we beat St Leo’s in the semi-final before meeting Wakeley in the final. As it transpired we turned up at Auburn only to find that the pitches were in poor condition and nearly waterlogged. On the day I was confident but immediately sensed that our girls were starting to psyche themselves out. They had seen a giant muddy puddle in the middle of the pitch and didn’t fancy getting their white kit dirty. Rightly or wrongly I made a decision. Abandoning the redundant warm up, I took our girls to the centre circle. Facing into the muddy centre I announced that everyone would kneel down in the puddles and splash their kit with water to get used to the conditions. Reluctantly the squad did just that and I told them I felt that this would be to our joint benefit. No sooner had they all stood back up covered in muddy water than the competition organiser appeared to announce, “No, no, you aren’t playing on that terrible pitch, it is a Grand Final you are over there on the main field!

Fortunately, we were right on kick off and no player had a chance to get to me, to say exactly what they thought. Of course the mud strategy worked because we absolutely demolished the opposition 4-0 and all was forgiven. We were inaugural MCCS Champions, a title we would also win for the next two seasons 95’ and 96’.