Editorials

Today’s announcement by the Brisbane Strikers that they have sacked their head coach, Ken Swan, might have the local coaching and playing fraternities scratching their heads. But it is probably correct to say that such a reaction will pale into insignificance compared to that of diehard Brisbane Strikers supporters. They will be absolutely gobsmacked!

That is not because of the merits, or otherwise, of the decision to dump Swan. Rather, it is because in the past the Strikers have simply not behaved with such hard-nosed, ruthless pragmatism when it came to hiring and firing their coaches.

Let’s face it, the Brisbane Strikers Football Club has historically been a club that has shown no predisposition whatsoever towards impatience with its head coach. This is a football club that, in fact, has declined to behave like most other football clubs in this regard. While other clubs have changed their coaching staff as often as some people change their underwear, the Strikers have been prone to steadfast loyalty and, in the minds of some fans, blind faith.

Since it became the Brisbane Strikers, the club has had just four coaches in 11 seasons. Two of those - Frank Farina and Stuart McLaren - left of their own accord, with McLaren doing so after only one season. Farina stayed for two, and the eight other seasons were shared between Bruce Stowell and John Kosmina. Stowell’s services were terminated after three years with, it must be said, sufficient rancour to apparently taint relations even to this day. Kosmina, though, lasted five seasons and must have felt at times quite immune to football’s ‘normal’ rule of thumb that coaches who fail to bring sustained success find themselves on the scrap heap - the sooner the better!

In comparison the fate of Ken Swan, who did not even get to coach the squad he has put together in a single Premier League fixture, is so out of character with the Strikers’ history that it might just signify a defining moment in a cultural shift within the club.

Whether this proves to be so might depend upon the longevity of the new alliance between the Brisbane Strikers and North Star which gives the Strikers a presence in the Premier League. Why? Because the momentum towards the decision, and the making of it, appears to have come from the North Star side of the business.

The management teams of both the Strikers and North Star have been at pains to point out, ever since the alliance was forged, that the football operations side of the venture is managed by the North Star committee. Under this arrangement the hiring and firing of players and coaching staff, and the product that is put on display on the field of play, is their preserve. The Strikers, for their part, are providing the financial backing, the venue and the access to specialist staff, services and facilities that the North Star people need to produce as good a football product as they can.

It is entirely in keeping with this model that the North Star committee was left free to make the decision that it did in relation to the head coaching position. The Brisbane Strikers management had little or no influence in it. One might presume that if they had, given their past patterns of behaviour, Swan might have had more cause for optimism.

The precise reasons for Swan’s departure remain, at this moment, between the former coach and his former employers. All that Director of Senior Football, Tony Georkas, would say today publicly today was that the club wanted a coach with a higher profile to better reflect the new arrangement with the Brisbane Strikers. The appointment of Bobby Hamilton, who has a fine coaching record in the local Premier League and its predecessor competitions, is consistent with that.

So is Swan merely the victim of a preference for a ‘designer label’? Probably not. He has been a stalwart of the North Star club for many years and it seems likely that the decision to replace him would have caused much soul-searching. We can probably speculate that there are other factors at play which pre-date the alliance with the Strikers. And those of us with our antennae extended have detected a certain tension in the air since the Strikers departed the Silver Boot competition prematurely.

If anything, the sacking of Swan indicates that the new administrative blood that has been brought into Perry Park by the North Star side of the alliance is grimly determined to ensure that the financial investment by the Strikers is rewarded with the best on-field results possible. Whether it really was necessary to part company with Swan to achieve them is something few Strikers supporters could know, because we have had very little opportunity to form a football-based opinion. We can, however, spare a thought for a man who would doubtless be feeling gutted.

In the meantime, the message is out: the new Brisbane Strikers want to be successful in the Premier League and are prepared to make tough decisions to achieve it. They believe they have recruited players who can get results, and they want to see them.

Now, into the environment created by this mindset, steps Bobby Hamilton. As well as feeling sympathy for Swan, perhaps we might feel a little for Hamilton. But somehow, given the local football mythology that portrays Hamilton as a coach who is competitive from the ends of his bootlaces to the tip of his tongue, we think it is likely that he wouldn’t have it any other way.

We wish both Bobby Hamilton and Ken Swan luck, while we watch with interest the shifting of the cultural sands within the Brisbane Strikers. 

The news that Stuart McLaren is leaving Brisbane to continue his football career in Malaysia is likely to go down like a lead balloon amongst Brisbane Strikers supporters, and even the wider Brisbane football community.

Not that they will look badly upon McLaren for choosing to go abroad to continue a career that has seen him give six of his best years to the Strikers.  While the supporters would have been only too happy to see him turn out for the club in the Queensland Premier League this year, few of them would have expected him to do so.  Instead, they would have expected that a player with his experience, skills and leadership qualities would continue his career at the highest level possible in Australia - in the A-League. 

The fact that McLaren has not secured an A-League contract in Brisbane is puzzling, particularly when you consider the comparitive behaviour of coaches David Mitchell at Sarawak, and Miron Bleiberg at Lions.  Mitchell, who has significant NSL coaching experience, has obviously seen enough of McLaren over the past five or six years to consider him good enough to invite straight over to Malaysia to play for him in what is, by all accounts, a pretty decent level of competition.  In contrast Bleiberg, who has lived and coached in Brisbane for the entire time that McLaren has been with the Strikers, said he wanted to see McLaren play in the Silver Boot competition over the next month before making up his mind.

The implications are obvious - the Lions either considered McLaren not good enough to wear their shirt, or they did not want to sign him for some other reason.  Whatever their reason, they’ve made a brave call and will have to live with it.  In any case, McLaren is an intelligent enough man to have drawn the appropriate conclusions and he has acted accordingly by electing to go abroad to continue his career at the best level available to him. 

His loss will be very keenly felt at the Brisbane Strikers.  Since arriving at the club midway through the 1998/99 season, he has been one of its most consistent performers, having put in very few below-par performances over 167 games.

But he has been much more than simply a high-quality player for the club.  He has been a high quality leader, through difficult times that would have proved too much for lesser men.  He arrived at a time when the team was in decline after winning the 1996/97 NSL title and soon became its skipper.  In that role, he saw the team through more rebuilding processes than he had a right to expect as the club went through political upheaval and financial difficulties.  McLaren was largely responsible for keeping the Strikers players together during that infamous period in 2001 when football politics of the dirtiest possible nature conspired to have the Strikers cut from the NSL by Soccer Australia, which reversed its decision after a month of relentless campaigning by the club and its supporters.

When you look back at the trials and tribulations that McLaren went through during this tumultuous period with the club, perhaps it is little wonder that when the Strikers parted company with John Kosmina in 2003, they eventually turned to McLaren, then only 28, to take over the coaching reigns with Luciano Trani.  They had, after all, had ample opportunity to assess the personal qualities of the man, as well as his football qualities.  If they wanted someone who could inspire loyalty and commitment to the blue and yellow, who lived and breathed the club, who could relate to and mentor the younger players, and who could talk knowledgeably, eloquently and with tact and diplomacy to the media, they knew they didn’t have to look outside Perry Park.

Even in putting together his squad last year, drawn largely from the ranks of the Queensland Premier League clubs, McLaren won plenty of admirers for the way in which he approached the clubs and dealt with their players, coaches and administrators.  Bridges that had been burnt by the Strikers in the past were rebuilt.  McLaren’s players spoke very highly of the closeness of the team bonds that McLaren and Trani forged, and the rewards came in the form of a top six finish.

With the last National Soccer League season over, and the long wait to find out if his club would be accepted into the A-League, McLaren went to the North Star club in 2004 to play a season in the QPL and keep his skills honed.  Even here he earned plaudits, as he lent quality and stability to a young side which had begun the season in uncertain form.

North Star Treasurer, Lindsay Stokes, had this to say about McLaren this week.  “Stuey has been a wonderful ambassador for the game both in Australia and overseas. At North Star we have really appreciated his skills, commitment and ability and willingness to help anyone and everyone".

The Brisbane Strikers Supporters’ Association can readily relate to those words - particularly the ones ‘ability and willingness to help anyone and everyone’.  McLaren’s ascendancy to the role of coach (and administrator) in the Strikers breathed a new air of accessibility and approachability into the place as far as we were concerned.  Suggestions for interaction between players and supporters were taken up eagerly by McLaren, who seemed to understand instinctively that close bonds between these two elements of a football club was of great potential benefit to his team and, more broadly, the club itself.

Similarly, McLaren always found time to talk to us to discuss players, tactics and just about anything as we sought to inform supporters through this website and the ‘Free Kick’ about the progress of the team and the club.  Nothing was ever too much trouble, no question was off-limits.

Most supporters who stick with their team through thick and thin reserve a special place in their hearts for players who they perceive to reciprocate their loyalty.  While they enjoy the skills and contributions of many players who come and go, there is little doubt that the greatest accolades, the most sincere feelings of appreciation, go to the type of player they regard as “a club man”.

Stuart McLaren has surely earned the title “club man” for the Brisbane Strikers.  In normal circumstances it would take longer than six years to earn that tag.  But McLaren’s years at the Strikers were anything but “normal circumstances”.  They were worth twelve years.  We can only hope that McLaren’s loyalty to his club did not mitigate against continuing his career in the A-League.

Stuart McLaren will be sorely missed by the Brisbane Strikers and their supporters.  In fact, we think he will be sorely missed in Brisbane football.  We hope that McLaren comes back some day in the not too distant future to continue to play a strong part in the game here, and we feel sure he will always be welcome at the Brisbane Strikers.

But in the meantime, we say goodbye to Stuart McLaren, and wish him good luck.  He deserves nothing less than to enjoy this next phase of his career in football.