Central Coast Mariners head coach Emily Husband could become just the fourth female head coach to lift a Ninja A-League Championship trophy this weekend. Ahead of Husband’s date with destiny, aleagues.com.au highlights her journey so far.
To this day, Emily Husband still wonders what might have been had she let self-doubt prevail when offered the job that would launch her coaching career to new heights.
Four years ago, Husband was unproven as a senior head coach – but that was all about to change, thanks to a show of faith from Sydney University’s Director of Football John Curran.
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Husband had coached every age group at the NSW NPLW club except for the first team when the then-head coach Alex Epakis took on the top job at Perth Glory, and Curran offered her the life-changing role.
“I point-blank said to him: ‘No, I’m not ready’,” Husband recalled to aleagues.com.au in an interview in 2024.
“And he said: ‘No, you are and you’re going to do it’.
“He mentored me in that space to give me the confidence to do that, and if he’d listened to my first answer I probably wouldn’t be where I am today.
“That was because he saw something in me that I hadn’t quite seen in myself yet – and that happens when you’re a relatively young coach. Although I have worked in the game for such a long time, I’ve still got a long way to go so I do genuinely think it’s so important to have someone who has got your back.”
Today, Husband is leading Central Coast Mariners through its second Ninja A-League campaign since the club returned to the league for the first time since 2009.
After a Semi-Final finish in 2023-24, Husband has overseen a remarkable surge to this season’s Ninja A-League Grand Final, where the Mariners will face Melbourne Victory on Sunday, May 18 at AAMI Park.
She will become the first female to coach in a decider since Jess Fishlock was player-coach of Melbourne City in 2017.
Take one glance at her coaching CV, and it will come as no surprise that Husband thrived at the helm of Sydney University, and that she’s doing the very same at the Mariners.
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Husband grew up in Yorkshire, England. She played youth football at her childhood club Leeds United, and senior football at Huddersfield Town, but found her calling as a grassroots coach in her teens.
She coached at Princeton in the United States and performed roles at both Leeds and Chelsea as well as a one-season stint in the Ninja A-League as Vicki Linton’s assistant in an all-female Canberra United coaching staff.
Husband then rose through the coaching ranks at Sydney University before receiving the offer from Curran to take charge of the senior women’s side in 2020.
Two years later, she was named NSW NPL 1 Coach of the Year.
One year after that, she had followed the lead of Sydney University’s past two senior coaches – Epakis and Heather Garriock – in departing the NPL club to become a Ninja A-League head coach.
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Today, Husband is one of only two women leading Ninja A-League clubs. The other is Kat Smith at Western United.
In all her years as a footballer, Husband never played for a female coach. The closest she ever came to finding a female role model to look up to was PE teachers at school.
It’s a point of pride for the Mariners boss that today, females aspiring to coach in the professional game can look to the Ninja A-League and take inspiration from her journey.
“Pretty much every club now will have a female coach somewhere within their ranks but 90% of the time they’re with U14s, U15s, U16s and once you get into the senior end, that’s when it starts to be dominated by men,” Husband says.
“For me, it’s got to start in the National Premier Leagues. It’s just about people putting faith and going against the narrative to give female coaches the opportunities.
“Yes, the ratio isn’t as high as we’d like it to be in terms of female and male coaches but you get a lot of female coaches in the youth that never seem to progress into senior football, and you have to ask the question: why?
“The NSW NPLW is somewhere I’ve coached for multiple years, and during the six years I worked there, I can only name three female coaches that took on a women’s senior team: myself, Heather Garriock and Ash Wilson. For me, that’s where it starts. All three coaches went on to progress to the A-League.
“We’ve really got to be looking at why more coaches currently in the youth system haven’t been looked at for that type of opportunity in senior football. That’s ultimately where you’re going to pick your next breed of coaches from, the NPL around the country.
“I’d always like to hope that if any (female coaches) did want to reach out, I’m always more than happy to sit down and have a coffee and talk football. It’s my favourite thing to talk about! You hope that by being visible, more coaches will think: ‘If this is something I aspire to do, then this is something I can achieve’.
“But at the same time, you’ve always got to have someone fighting in your corner for you. At Sydney Uni I was lucky enough to have John Curran who gave me opportunities when I wasn’t 100% confident myself, and everyone needs a mentor like that to give you the push when you need it.”
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Husband was named Central Coast head coach in March 2023, but couldn’t shift her full focus to the Ninja A-League squad until the end of the 2023 NPLW season in September.
One month after the end of her stint as Sydney University head coach, the 2023-24 Ninja A-League season began.
“At the time we only had one player signed – Annalise Rasmussen,” recalls Husband.
“Your thoughts immediately turn to: ‘What sort of a culture do I want to build, and what sort of playing style do we want to have?’
“It was a huge few months. It wasn’t just the recruitment of players, it was the recrutiment of staff, policies, procedures, and processes. Your mind goes to everything but at the same time, I was trying to continue finishing the season off as strong as I could do at Sydney University.
“I didn’t sleep much. There was a massive degree of doubt. I’d worked one season previously in the A-League but to build the program from top to bottom is not something you get prepared for as a coach.
“Most coaches come in and the foundations are laid, and it’s just about what you can put on top of that to bring a good brand of football to a club.
“One of the biggest changes was every single decision being mine, which has never been a particular strength of mine. Every single decision came down to me and what I wanted, so that was something I had to force myself to get used to.
“But do you know what? Yes, it was a hard time in terms of the hours I was working but it was also one of the most exciting projects I’ve ever been given… no matter what happens and how things go, as long as I know within my heart of hearts I’ve given it everything, I can walk away proud.
“That’s something I’ll continue to do: put everything I have into what I’m given. It was exciting, definitely challenging and it got me out of my comfort zone.”
Husband built her inaugural Mariners squad in just seven months, and took the club all the way to the Semi-Finals in her first season in charge.
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Following the heartbreak of a two-legged defeat to Sydney FC, the Mariners underwent an off-season overhaul as several key players headed out the door.
The Mariners lost their two top scorers in Rola Badawiya and Wurigumula, who both scored eight goals in 2023-24 – five more than the next-highest scorers at the club.
Matildas legend Kyah Simon also left the club, as did American import Jazmin Wardlow, experienced goalkeeper Casey Dumont and English defender Faye Bryson.
But just like it was ahead of her first season in charge, Husband’s recruitment in the most recent off-season was right on the money.
Taylor Ray, a three-time Ninja A-League Champion, signed from Sydney FC and won the club’s Player of the Season award.
English duo Brooke Nunne and Jade Pennock have been key contributors to the Mariners’ attack and have exploded in the Finals Series; Pennock scored twice to seal an Elimination Final win over Canberra United, before two goals from Nunne kept the Mariners on level pegging with Melbourne City at 2-2 after the first-leg of the Semi-Finals.
Izzy Gomez scored the winning goal in the return leg to send the Mariners through to the Grand Final – a player who has gone from strength to strength under Husband’s watch to earn the first Matildas call-up of her career – although that opportunity was quelled by a knee injury earlier this season.
Young Matildas captain Jessika Nash joined Mariners from Victory and has been a standout in defence for the Mariners this season, while the scholarship signing of 16-year-old Tiana Fuller has resulted in the emergence of one of Australia’s most exciting young talents under Husband’s watch through a remarkable breakout campaign from the teenager.
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In just a two-year timeframe, Husband has proven herself as one of the Ninja A-League’s top talent identifiers, as a tactically astute manager whose teams are notoriously hard to break down, and as the perfect leader for a club that’s wasted no time in reacclimatising to the Ninja A-League after a near-15-year hiatus between 2008 and 2023.
Should the Mariners defeat Victory in Sunday’s Grand Final, Husband would become just the fourth female coach in Ninja A-League history to have overseen a Championship-winning side.
Previous female head coaches to win Ninja A-League Championships
- 2012: Jitka Klimkova (Canberra)
- 2014: Liesbeth Migchelsen (Canberra)
- 2016-17: Jessica Fishlock (Melbourne City – player/coach)
“I’m absolutely thrilled,” Husband told Network 10 after Sunday’s Semi-Final win over Melbourne City, as she looked ahead to the prospect of a Grand Final clash against Victory.
“Obviously, all our games against Melbourne Victory have been really close this year. We’ve gone down to them twice, and I think there’ve been times where we’ve outplayed them.
“So again, just a really good team to go up against. I’m just really thrilled for the group.”
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