Ahead of this weekend’s 2023 Isuzu UTE A-League Grand Final, inaugural Central Coast Mariners coach Lawrie McKinna and club legends Matt Simon, Daniel McBreen and Josh Rose reflect on the early days of the club in the KEEPUP special: ‘Making of the Mariners’.
Ever wondered what it’s like to start a football club from scratch?
Central Coast Mariners were one of the new franchises established in year one of the A-Leagues back in 2004 – along with seven other clubs across the country.
Lawrie McKinna was named the club’s inaugural head coach, signing from former NSL side Northern Spirit and had the job of helping construct the Mariners’ squad for the 2005/06 season.
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Now, almost two decades on, McKinna sat down with Mariners legends Daniel McBreen, Josh Rose and Matt Simon to chart the club’s journey from the first day right through to now, as they prepare for a first Isuzu UTE A-League Grand Final in a decade.
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“It was November 2004, the announcement was made the Mariners were getting in. We had no idea if we were getting in,” McKinna said on KEEPUP’s Making of the Mariners.
“It was a hectic few months to get players on the park, and the first tournament we got ready for was the World Club Championship.
“Then we set up at the training facility in Mingara and we had a good set up, but… as training in the Central Coast goes, when it came to August, we had to leave that because the school athletics carnival used the running track so we got given the arse and then we had to go elsewhere.”
The Mariners were essentially nomadic for the first five years of their existence, training out of a number of different facilities all across the Central Coast.
“We trained up the mountains, we trained at Budgewoi, we trained at Jubilee,” he said.
“We had 19 training venues in five years, and basically I would get a phone call from the council in the morning when I was away picking up the chickens and the salad for the boys’ lunch (that) training is off.
“So we went to Wadalba, we went to Budgewoi. We were at Budgewoi one day and we couldn’t train because the parakeets flew in through the mid-west because there were a drought and ate all the grass.
“John Aloisi’s first training session in 2008 there was a burnt out car in the middle of the training field in the cricket wicket.
“Then, Viddie’s (Tony Vidmar) first training session we were playing a five a side or something and a woman walked across the middle of the park and (her) dog s*** in the ground and what did we do? We just picked up a cone and scooped it up and said ‘right boys, continue’ and the boys just got on with it.”
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McKinna described the training sessions as “ad-hoc” and even at times the Mariners had to use poles as goalposts, along with marking their own pitches.
“We had a couple of poles (for goals), we trained out at the uni and near the uni there was a pack out there,” he said.
“I told Alex Tobin to make a 70 metre down that line and I’ll do the 70 metres here and I’m looking at the field, he’d only done 60 metres and I’d done 70, it was like a hexagon.
“I remember Adam Kwasnik had a go at Peter Turnbull in the dressing room after a 0-0. The chairman has came in and went ‘ah, couldn’t yous have scored’ and Kwas piped: ‘if you gave us bloody goals, we might be able to score instead of having poles’ and that’s what it was like.
“I met the plumber who made the plastic goals for us and he used to put them together every day and it was made out of four inch drain pipes but we just got on with it. No point whinging because there were nobody to listen to us.”
Due to how under resourced the club was at the time, staff members had to take on multiple roles to keep the club going – including McKinna and the entire playing group.
“The players helped out, staff helped out, wives,” he said.
“If we went interstate. Christine (McKinna’s wife) used to watch the kit because we never took a kit man with us so when we come back, she would wash the kit and have it done for Joe Spiteri on the Monday when we got to training.
“Myself, Alex Tobin and Ian Ferguson used to go and hang the gear up. We’d get to the ground, we’d put the gear up, set the gear up for the boys. It just worked and everybody (did) as much as they could for everybody else and they were great mates off the park as well.”
Simon, who joined the club in the Mariners’ second season, reflected on how it was from a playing perspective as well and the retired striker turned Mariners sporting director believes the club’s early success can be put down to how the squad banded together despite being under resourced.
“Back then, I was obviously just being happy to be a part of it,” he said.
“When you look back now and and how everything’s progressed, you you look back and go: ‘wow, how did we get through those times?’ and the only way we got through them was Lawrie doing everything he did and having the players that he had around the group.
“When I look back now, you have players like John Aloisi, Tony Vidmar, Tom Pondeljak, Nick Mrdja. All these great players and their big careers.
“We were training on hockey fields in joggers and imagine doing that now… It wouldn’t happen but we just got on with it, we’d make do and I think that’s why we were so successful in those early years.”
Despite the off-field obstacles, the Mariners banded together on the field and made the Grand Final – where they fell 1-0 to Sydney FC at Allianz Stadium.
“We won the pre-season cup that year and we’re going ‘oh, maybe we’ve got something here’, you know,” he said.
“We had a great run at the end and we made the Grand Final against Sydney when Bimbi (Steve Corica) scored which was heartbreaking, to do so well and to get so far and then to look at all the Mariners fans.
“Over 10,000 fans made the trip down and it was heartbreaking and we came back to the leagues club and with about 600 people in the room and you walk in and you go: ‘why are these people still here?’ It’s like four hours after the game and it was really emotional.
“Somebody started whistling, Always Look on the Bright Side of Life from Monty Python, and then everybody started singing It was just one of those magic moments.”
Full context behind an iconic A-Leagues moment that became a meme
In the rise and fall of the club, there have been several seminal moments but one that remains among the most iconic in the history of the A-Leagues arrived on October 31, 2015.
As Mariners great Simon netted a double for Sydney FC against the club where he made his name after being deemed surplus to requirements at the end of the previous season, ex-Mariners boss Graham Arnold turned and taunted the Central Coast bench.
“You didn’t want him!” the now Socceroos boss famously yelled.
In the years since, the moment has become something of a meme in the A-Leagues community, often wheeled out in GIF form when appropriate.
On Making of the Mariners, the full impact of that moment became clear.
“For me there is a real seminal moment in that dark point; there was a time where you (Simon) obviously went off to Sydney and Arnie, when you scored two goals against them in one game and he turns to the crowd and went ‘you didn’t want him’,” Mariners great Daniel McBreen recalled.
“The people in the club didn’t want you here or they didn’t think you were valuable enough a person to keep around, which anyone who is from this area and knows you well knows full well that you’re the heart and soul of the club… and you’d never undermine any manager or anything along those lines.
“You always did what was best for the club and the community.
“For me, the fact that you had to leave to go away to Sydney, which I knew you didn’t want to do, but you went there and enjoyed your time and were successful. Then, it took them to realise, ‘hey, you know what, we need this guy back’.”
Simon explained: “Yeah, well that was Monty (current head coach Nick Montgomery).
“When I went to Sydney… I had to go to Sydney and I’m forever grateful for Sydney giving me that opportuntiy and I love that they’re my second club, winning a Championship there and what they did for me and my family in a period where those people in those positions made those decisions.
“After three years at Sydney they wanted to keep me, but Monty rang me up and asked for a coffee and said he was going to be assistant coach and he wanted me to be the first player (they) bring back to the club.
“So, I think he knew the process that needed to start to fix all those bad decisions over that period.”
At the time, Arnold said he had received a phone call suggesting ‘no one in the A-League wanted’ Simon, even after he ‘offered his services to the Mariners on minimum wage’.
Of course, in the years since, the Wizard of Woy Woy – as he is affectionately known – has once again become a fixture in Gosford, going from striker to Head of Recruitment and Player Welfare and, now, Sporting Director.
