The Key to Success
Launching an Hyundai A-League franchise can be an expensive business but CENTRAL COAST MARINERS have defied the odds to become a model for the growing competition
When they were granted admission to the Hyundai A-League, Central Coast Mariners had plenty of excuses to fail; small population base, limited pool of potential sponsors, close proximity to competitors, zero football history.
Four years later, the team in yellow and navy has proudly defied any doomsday predictions. The competition-s only regional franchise has formed a reputation as the “little club that could”, punching above its weight on and off the pitch.
Two grand final appearances, a premiers plate and the odd sell-out crowd have come in just the first three seasons. Perhaps more remarkably, the club turned a profit in the 2007/08 financial year.
Pundits are quick to signal the club-s connection with the Central Coast community as the root to its success. But away from the balmy matches at the idyllic Bluetongue Stadium there is a story unfolding that is much deeper than your regular rags to riches tale.
This is a club with a very clear mission statement: To be the centre of excellence for football in Australia.
Honour Roll The club-s achievements speak for themselves.
The Mariners have managed to transform the population from a Rugby League-loving commuter corridor between Sydney and Newcastle into a parochial football heartland. You can see it in the stands at Bluetongue, where the crowds averaged a healthy 12,738 last season, and you can see it in the parks and shopping centres of the Coast where it seems like every third or fourth person - especially children - bears some piece of club merchandise.
The aforementioned on-field success has been complemented by the recruitment of Socceroos icons Tony Vidmar, John Aloisi and Mark Bosnich.
According to the club, it is the highest sponsored in the A-League - an astonishing result given it hails from one of the smaller commercial markets.
Looking internally, the club has established talent identification and development programs that are ahead its rivals, including formal partnerships with football associations on the Central Coast, in Canberra and across numerous Sydney districts on the north side of the Harbour Bridge.
Looking outwards, the Mariners spent the off-season joining a global strategic network of clubs headlined by England-s Sheffield United and Brazil-s Sao Paulo, and are now reaping the benefits, through serious investment and partnerships.
The club announced in early December that British property developer and owner of United Kevin McCabe is to invest millions of dollars into the club - a reported $1m in the short-term, to boost the club-s youth stocks and operational costs, growing to around $40m over the next five years.
“It's all been about creating business models which can provide revenue opportunities off the field,” McCabe said after the deal was announced.
"Peter and Lyall see things the same way and that's why we've got together. It's about building a proper infrastructure, from the six-year-olds upwards.
"Football is a risk game. How often does the best team lose? Probably more than in any other sport. What you want is to build a club which is going to be successful over the long term."
McCabe-s involvement in the club will also involve links to United, and clubs in China, Dubai, Hungary and Brazil. It sounds revolutionary - but it is all simply the evolution of an ambitious but measured business plan.
Mariners Football Manager Lawrie McKinna says the reasons for the club-s success all tie into one key theme.
“The stability of the club has been the most influential factor,” he says. “Very few of the office staff have left, the coaching staff has stayed almost the same, and 11 current players have been here since the first season.”
When the club-s bid to be in the A-League was in its embryonic stages, McKinna and his assistants - Alex Tobin and new North Queensland coach Ian Ferguson - were the consistent factors who contrived the community-based approach the club has lived by since.
“That plan has existed since day one. We had to embrace the community and become their team,” says McKinna, who was volunteering four days a week as the face of the Mariners bid during the initial set up phase.
It-s that clarity of purpose and method, consistently executed, that McKinna believes has been integral in winning over a market once jilted by the National Rugby League-s failed Northern Eagles franchise - a Sydney-based team playing half its matches at Gosford.
Personality Mix McKinna says his deliberate recruitment of players with specific personal qualities has been another winning factor.
“If we didn-t have the right characters there we couldn-t do the community work,” he says. “When we were first doing the community work we were not sure if we-d get a return but as the first season went on and on you could just see it happening.”
Since the club-s inception, Mariners players have attended countless public events, signings and fan days. Players act as ambassadors to local sides and regularly attend weeknight training sessions.
One of McKinna-s favourite moments symbolises the passion with which the Coast public has paid their team back.
“The morning of the last grand final we had a waterfront farewell at Gosford,” he recalls. “I was expecting to see 200 people if we were lucky. Four or five thousand fans showed up and lined the waterfront and the bridge at the stadium to see us away. I thought: we must be doing something right.”
Kerry Ruffels, a Coast resident for 18 years, can attest first hand to what the club has done for the region.
Ruffels heads up Business Central Coast - the Mariners- naming rights sponsor. He believes the Mariners have succeeded precisely where their rugby league predecessors failed.
“Quite the opposite to what the Northern Eagles did, the Central Coast Mariners started on the Coast and wanted to represent the Coast from day one,” he says. “They weren-t paying the community lip service.
“It-s almost like an equal adoption. The Mariners adopted the Central Coast and the residents adopted the Mariners. They-ve given the region identity, ownership of something and pride.”
Ruffels says he was sold on the Mariners- vision since his first meeting with the club and has since seen the team as the ideal vehicle to promote the region externally.
“The thing I love is that they haven-t accepted that because they-re location on the Central Coast that second best is sufficient,” he says. “They offer no less than you can get in any capital city in the country.”
Money Talk It-s no coincidence that Ruffels- sentiments reflect back to that ‘centre of excellence- mission statement.
Lyall Gorman, Mariners Executive Chairman, has been consistently driving that message since teaming with McKinna and co back in 2004.
Gorman says the 2007/08 profit margin of just over $300k based on a turnover of just over $7m is the result of not one but several years of successful enterprise.
“Our success goes back to day one,” he says. “It-s been built around stability and careful financial management - we run a lean ship from an office point of view and we haven-t really gone into the big spending marquee field.
“In sport and business if you-re focused on instant success you-re often tempered by that. Sport is an emotional roller coaster week to week but it-s a commitment to a long term vision.”
Gorman says the club has achieved that stability through long term contracts, such as McKinna-s five-year extension on the back of a successful first season, and retention of players such as John Crawley and Damien Brown who have moved into coaching positions since retiring.
With the football side of things running smoothly - crowds are solid, the team is playing well and fans are anticipation their maiden campaign into Asia - Gorman has a strong focus on the business side of the club.
A massive Coast-based sporting centre of excellence complex is set to become the jewel in the crown; a new training complex at Tuggerah, which will include a 120-room hotel as well as cutting edge training and administration facilities.
“It will be state of the art,” Gorman says. “It will have training fields for the seniors, a playing arena for the youth and womens- leagues, rehab pools, gyms, futsal courts and other revenue generating areas.”
Gorman says best-practise sports science, conference centres and accommodation for overseas teams from all sports would be other functions of the site, for which the club is currently exploring possible locations.
Although the club evolves, McKinna and Gorman are both adamant the core principles remain the same. Stability will be the cornerstone as achievements continue to be checked off the list. Headline-writers might spin the rags-to-riches story for a little while longer, but the fans will simply be saying: Steady as she goes.