----- Latest News -----

 

27/06/05 Farewell Jack Baren

The Brisbane Strikers and North Star football clubs said farewell to one of their guiding lights on Monday when a large gathering of mourners attended the funeral of Jack Baren, who passed away last WEdnesday after a long battle with cancer.

Among those of Mr Baren's "extended family" of football who accompanied his immediate family to pay their last respects were three men who had good reasons to remember his achievements in life. Former North Star player and Vice-President Neil Sullivan, former Brisbane Strikers coach (and current Adelaide United coach) John Kosmina and Stuart McLaren - who needs no introduction to the current generation of Strikers players and supporters - were all profoundly influenced by the man who was a quiet achiever for both football clubs.

All three were good enough to talk to the BSSA this week about a man who was, by their accounts, at varying times a mentor, confidante, advisor, diplomat and friend.

Sullivan, who has been involved with the North Star club for almost 40 years, said that he first met Jack Baren, who had been a player and then a player-coach for North Star, in the late 1970s. By then, Baren had become the club's Football Manager.

"We were in the Third Division then, around 1978", Sullivan recalled. "Jack was instrumental in getting North Star to where it is now. The coaches did it as far as on-the-field was concerned, but Jack did it behind the scenes. He took us from the Third Division into the Fourex League, to Ampol Cup. After Ampol Cup, we were one of the most successful clubs around by the early nineties. He brought terrific players and coaches in - like George Potter, Iain Fagan, Ritchie Smith, Jim Hermiston, Billy Williamson and the Swan Brothers.

"He was just so professional, and his passion for the club was something he will have taken to his grave. The club has a proud history - and that is all to do with what Jack Baren did".

Sullivan said that Baren brought great personal qualities to the often tricky role of Football Manager, which involves handling contract negotiations and looking after the well-being of players.

"In football clubs the politics can be so vigorous", he said. "But in all the years I've known Jack I've never heard anyone say a harsh word about him. Noel Lord (former North Star goalkeeper) leaned over to me at the funeral yesterday and said to me that the beauty of Jack Baren was that, when you sat down to negotiate a contract with him, you'd come to terms in the contract and you'd go out thinking 'I've got him'! Then, a few hours later you'd be thinking 'How good was he'"?

"He was a father figure to a lot of us - and he did it all with ease. I remember one time when we were in the Third Division. I was a fringe player, only about eighteen or nineteen, and hadn't played many games. They had budgeted for an end of season trip but couldn't take all the players and I'd missed out. I was sitting at home and thinking 'You bastards'! Then there was a knock on the door and Jack Baren had arrived, at 5.30, and he said that someone had dropped out and there was space for me on the trip, and would I come? This is at 5.30, for leaving at 6.30. I said 'No', because I was a bit shitty about it. After half an hour, Jack had talked me into going - that was the sort of person that Jack was".

Baren later took his football management skills to the Brisbane Strikers, where in the late 1990s he became acquainted with John Kosmina. As any Brisbane Strikers supporter of recent vintage would know, Kosmina had a long tenure as coach of the Strikers but was most certainly not blessed with favourable circumstances, as a combination of financial troubles and vicious football politics made almost every NSL season a difficult one for the club.

"We were fairly close during my time in Brisbane during a period of turmoil and transition for the Brisbane Strikers", Kosmina recalled. "That goes back to the 'prawn farm' years, and getting kicked out of the league, and all that sort of thing. We spent a lot of time together, and Jack, through all of that turmoil, was a voice of reason".

"I have known very few people who were as well liked or respected. What you saw with Jack was what you got - he never judged people, he was honest, truthful and loyal. There was no bullshit with Jack.

"If more people could emulate Jack Baren, the world would be a better place".

McLaren, too, had plenty of reason to be thankful for Baren's presence and influence at the club. As club captain during most of Kosmina's coaching reign, McLaren felt the trials and tribulations as keenly as anyone, before going on to become the Strikers' player-coach in the club's last NSL season.

"Jack was very active in the club when I was captain, then due to his illness he took a bit of a back seat when I was coach, but when things came good for a while he became more involved again", McLaren said.

"The best thing about Jack, which he probably learned from his time at Cadbury's (where he was a senior executive) was that he had really good people skills. He was the link between the Board of Directors and the players, and he always made the players feel really comfortable, whether it was in contract talks or looking after players' welfare.

"He was one of those guys who it was good to be around. He used to come in with some fairly ordinary jokes and make everybody feel good. He was a steadying influence and a diplomat, which was a nice counterbalance to Kossie who liked to be more direct".

McLaren said that he had learned much from Baren that had stood him in good stead when McLaren accepted the job of coaching the Strikers at an age (28) when most players would be thinking only about next week's game rather than taking on the extra responsibilities that go with being the 'gaffer'.

"He wasn't a lecturer", McLaren explained. "When he negotiated a contract he liked to do it in such a way that the player walked out feeling that he'd won something. So, when I was coaching, what I'd learned from Jack was to see it from the players' side of things. I tried to make them feel respected and important - even if I was dropping them from the side".

If the true measure of a person's life is that others feel better for your having been around, and that they have learned something positive and lasting from you, then Jack Baren obviously has left many people reflecting this week on a life well lived.

It is a foregone conclusion that Jack Baren's guiding light, far from having gone out, will continue to illuminate the football clubs he loved for some time yet - in the words and deeds of those he influenced.