Former Socceroos coach Arnold to take over Mariners

By Ed Jackson, 10 Feb 2010 Ed Jackson is a Roar Pro

Tagged:: A-League, Central Coast Mariners, football, Graham Arnold, Socceroos

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Former Socceroos coach Graham Arnold will take over the helm of the Central Coast Mariners with current coach Lawrie McKinna moving into a new off-field role at the A-League club.

McKinna, who has coached the Mariners since the inaugural A-League season in 2005-06, will move into a football and commercial operations role at the Gosford-based club.

He has also extended his contract with the club, due to expire at the end of the 2010-11 season, by another year in the process.

Scotsman McKinna led the Mariners to two A-League grand finals in his time in charge but has seen his team fail to make the finals for the first time this year after a disappointing run of results.

He also won the inaugural A-League coach of the year prize and led the club through their Asian Champions League campaign in 2009.

“This is a great opportunity for me,” McKinna in a statement.

“I’m excited about the new opportunities that will present themselves within this role at the club, while still maintaining a strong presence in the football side of things.”

The move means Melbourne Victory boss Ernie Merrick is the only coach to lead just one A-League club since its inception.

Arnold, who has been involved with the national team for 10 years, will take over from McKinna at the end of this year’s World Cup in South Africa.

He has signed a deal which takes him through to the end of the 2012-13 A-League campaign.

“Lawrie has played a significant role in bringing this appointment to fruition,” Mariners executive chairman Lyall Gorman said.

“I know that he looks forward to building a long and fruitful partnership with Graham.”

Former Socceroo Arnold was briefly national team boss after the 2006 World Cup until the 2007 Asian Cup.

The Mariners will end their 2010 A-League campaign in Wellington on Friday.

Current Socceroos coach Pim Verbeek gave Arnold his blessing to step away from the national team after the World Cup, saying the Mariners would benefit from having him take over.

“The Central Coast Mariners have had five fantastic years with Lawrie McKinna and they are very fortunate to have Graham as their new coach,” Verbeek said in a statement.

“I am sure that the players and club will benefit greatly from his knowledge and experience.”

Football Federation Australia chief executive Ben Buckley said the national body had no objections with Arnold signing a deal with the Mariners despite still being a part of the national set-up.

“Graham’s current coaching contract with FFA is set to conclude at the end of the 2010 FIFA World Cup campaign, and although we are disappointed that he will no longer be involved with the national team, we wish him all the best for his new challenge,” Buckley said.

Arnold, whose playing career took him to Holland, Belgium and Japan, made 85 appearances for Australia with his final fixture being the infamous World Cup qualifier against Iran in Melbourne in 1997.

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The Crowd Says (32) | Page 1 of Comments

Tifosi said | February 10th 2010 @ 4:51am | Report comment

Great news,

the further arnold is away from the socceroos the better it is.

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- Savvas Tzionis said | February 10th 2010 @ 8:12am | Report comment
  
  Hilarious… and true!!
  
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Vince said | February 10th 2010 @ 6:54am | Report comment

A great day for the National team, not sure how good it is for CCM though
Will give GA the benefit of the doubt for now but suspect that he will be found out quite quickly and hopefully by the time he is the new National coach and assistants will be in place thereby stopping him running back there

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george said | February 10th 2010 @ 7:29am | Report comment

its a pity he is still going to the world cup

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Lu said | February 10th 2010 @ 7:32am | Report comment

I don’t want to join in with the Arnold bashing.. but if he couldn’t get our best players (socceroos) or our brightest talents (olyroos) anywhere, how is he going to go with a tight salary cap budget?

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- midfield general said | February 10th 2010 @ 8:33pm | Report comment
  
  Let me make the excuses for Arnie for his past failures. 2007 Asian Cup – he had about 10 days to prepare the players returning from northern summer holidays to play in SE Asian heat. Losing to Japan on penalties hardly a hanging offence here. 2008 Olympics – c’mon people we were up against the Argies, Serbia and Ivory Coast with what was basically a A league squad. I doubt anyone else would have done better than him. He’s probably ok at club level, but too inexperienced at international level. Will do better than Mckenna
  
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Punter said | February 10th 2010 @ 8:01am | Report comment

Lets think of the positives;

He is now away from the national side, but let’s be frank, his role as Socceroo no 2 has coincided with the most succussful period in Socceroos history. Sure we have had pretty good No 1s, but they would got rid if he was that bad.

He is sure to have alot of experience working with Guus & Pim, I know he failed at both the Asian cup (not entirely his fault) & the Olympics (hard to blame anyone else really).

The A-League is a big drop from the national front.

I for one will give him a go & give him the benefit of the doubt & we may see a very good club coach.

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- whiskeymac said | February 10th 2010 @ 8:48am | Report comment
  
  well said. GA is easy to despair at, especially when players such as vidosic and kilkenny bag him for the olympics (and thats not to say his well documented media failures post Asia and Olympics). I want to believe he can do well at club level and will give him the benefit of the doubt. ie normally about 5 games into a season before concerns get raised.
  not many coaches have done well with the roos, or australia’s best, though… Venables for example didnt make the WC, and am sure most HAL clubs wldnt mind him as coach.
  
  on the plus side is Lawries record. which, when all factors are taken into acount, (new club, new region, small budget, no marquee’s etc) was very good even if teh football style which allowed them to “punch above their weight” was not exaclty a neutrals favourite. good to see Lawries not being dumped and set aside. good on the club.
  
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Davstar said | February 10th 2010 @ 8:39am | Report comment

I think Arnold will be a good coach in the A-league. Coaching out socceroos one of the world top 30 national teams i a lot harder then coaching the CCM.

He will have good connections to many socceroos that might return home i can garentee Chipperfield will belooking to return home after the WC and he’s a bit of a legend to people imagine if he was playing for CCM.

He has worked under Hiddik (voted 4th best coach in the world) and Pim Verbeek our current successful national coach. I think he has a lot to bring to the A-league. He also got the Olyroos to the Olympics, he’s not a terrable coach he still has a lot to learn about player selections. Not taking Vidosic to the Olypics are a stupid move but i think at A-league level he will do well.

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Savvas Tzionis said | February 10th 2010 @ 8:40am | Report comment

Graham Arnold is the WORST coach that has ever existed.

When he was coaching Northern Spirit he single handedly destroyed that club with the most TURGID football EVER!!

And yet, he continues to get gigs!!!

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- markwakefield said | February 12th 2010 @ 12:01pm | Report comment
  
  what is turgid football?
  i thought turgid meant swollen…
  
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Dogz R Barkn said | February 10th 2010 @ 9:00am | Report comment

Good luck to Arnie.

It’s amazing the amount of flak he copped – mostly from people who had been following the game for five minutes and who wouldn’t know a sweeper from his broomstick.

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Dogz R Barkn said | February 10th 2010 @ 9:06am | Report comment

I can recall people doubting whether Farina would be good for the A-League when he took over the Roar.

People actually doubting that someone who had an outstanding professional career abroad, and who coached the NT for 4 or so years, whether he could coach an A-League club??!!

A large swathe of A-League fans were openly asking this very question!!

It didn’t end well for Farina, for personal reasons, but for a time, he did pretty well with the Roar and they were one of the toughest outfits to crack (in a league where teams occasionally bang through 3 goals in 5 minutes).

At one point, he even had Reinaldo looking like a decent centre-forward!

And he’s the one who introduced youngsters like Zullo, Kruse and Oar, all of whom made an impact almost immediately.

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- Towser said | February 10th 2010 @ 9:41am | Report comment
  
  As a Roar Fan Frank did okay at the Roar. Hard to judge him like Ange in reality ,because IMO some of the Roar players have never been good enough. At least good enough to put Roar into the same category as MV.
  But Dogz R Barkin,its stretching the imagination to imagine that Merlin himself could cast a magic spell to make Reinaldo a centre-forward. One of the worst decisions Frank made was accepting him back from South Korea.
  
  Anyway back to Arnie. Like Frank unproven in coaching at club level. Given his experience at that level.
  But his International credentials to me are better than Franks.
  Ie Frank was a lone ranger learning from nobody above him. Arnie has been an apprentice to Frank. Then an apprentice to men with far higher International credentials & experience than Frank ever had.
  It should stand him in good stead.
  If not he’ll be found out & will never make it as a coach in his own right.
  Worth a gamble by CCM, as they had hit a brick wall under Lawrie.
  
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  - Dogz R Barkn said | February 10th 2010 @ 9:58am | Report comment
    
    Towser
    
    your testing my memory now, and it’s a league I only really follow from afar, but it must have been the 3rd season when Frank’s roar strung together a dozen good games to finish 3rd and ultimately make the preliminary final.
    
    From memory, Reinaldo played most of that season as a lone striker, and did the job as a target man, creating a few goals and scoring a few himself – and he definitely helped create the space that allowed Kruse to knock through a few lazy goals playing as a winger ghosting in – some of those goals he scored he was in an absolute acre of space!! (and they were decent angled finishes)
    
    Now you’re probably right that once van Dijk was recruited in the following year, there was no real need to accept Reinaldo back, because clearly van Dijk is a fair better player, so yes, that was probably an error of judgement.
    
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  - whiskeymac said | February 10th 2010 @ 10:46am | Report comment
    
    Agreed Towser he does have a better resume to date than Frank and this job should give him an opportunity to make it on his own – especially with a shake up reported at the club re:assistants and players.
    
    on his side, apart from endorsements from Guus and Pim etc he has steered the team to the olympics (and they flunked), but until then did OK. got the roos to the QFs and lost only on penalties to a fired up Japan, but the whole set up was flawed and players and coach and FFA were all caught out in this first venture into Asia.
    
    am curious to see how he handles media scrutiny though, especially if things start to go pear shaped.
    
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Midfielder said | February 10th 2010 @ 10:08am | Report comment

Post in two parts first my thoughts on LM & then part of a great blog on 442 written by Jukia De Meyrick … finally my tho’s on GA…

Midfielder’s view
Thanks Mate

Everyone has their own story about you … I have never met you but I have admired in many ways what you have done..

IMO the best thing you have achieved for our club is not on the field, although two grand finals and a pre season cup are not easily written off..

No what you achieved was to get the Mariners accepted on the Coast at a time when many wanted the Bears RL team and many on the Coast where openly hostile towards the Mariners seeing them as claim jumpers…(Less us never forget that even SBS and Mrs Football wanted a Olympic or South Melbourne instead of the CC and did not help us at all)… Essentially no one was on our side and we had very limited funds…

In an area that on a per head % has the highest RL junior’s… a number of massive nay mega RL clubs CCLC & Wyong spring to mind, as well as the smaller ones like Woy Woy & The Entrance…

The CC proud boast was it was RL heartland and the local media both radio and newspapers gave RL great support… That the team came in part from the Northern Spirit with its spiritual homeland of North Sydney Oval gave more fuel to the CC Bears faithful…

Somehow with good humour, and making yourself available to radio in particular you built pride in the CC for our football team… Today everyone on the CC wants the Mariners to do well, Football is seen in a good light, and most importantly the Mariners are viewed by locals as our team … IMO no one did more to make this happen than yourself…For this I will be forever grateful and wish you well in your new role.

Jukia De Meyrick (Journalist with 442) well parts of anyway… great read if you read it all ..http://au.fourfourtwo.com/blogs.aspx?CIaBEID=1690

After suffering personally and professionally following the collapse of the old NSL, Lawrie McKinna dedicated himself to setting up a viable football club on the Central Coast where none had previously existed. He did this at great personal risk because he truly believed Coasties would embrace the round ball game if the club forged strong and active links with its own community.

His efforts were spectacularly successful, creating a new market for football through sheer dedication and passion for the game. So much of what the club stands for (family-orientated, friendly, unpretentious) is down to him. And yet he has also dazzled us with his ability to build a team, to choose quality players from out-of-nowhere, like Simon and Jedinak.

It’s a rare combination and it’s hard not to feel that, even with Lawrie’s guidance, Arnie will struggle to fill his boots. Even if Arnie proves to be a much better coach than most people give him credit for, no-one will ever outshine Lawrie’s achievements as a man of the people. Let’s face it, it’s hard to imagine Arnie asking fans over for a barbeque to meet the new striker or waxing his chest live on radio to raise money for charity.

In the end, perhaps Lawrie just got fed up with the pressures of A-League coaching, fed up with being criticised even when his boys beat more “fashionable” teams hands-down, fed up with not being given due credit for his achievements, which will endure long after the ignorant babblers have been forgotten.

Finally my tho’s on GA…

Where to start… arguably the worst and most failed coach in Australian history… from his time at the Northern Spirit till the Olyroo’s… Having said that he is also arguably one of the most experienced coaches in Australia further in working under Guss & Pim you would hope he learnt something…

Time will tell if this is inspired appointment or the most stupid thing a club has done … he will have no honey moon period … he achieves from game one … if by mid season he is hopeless I hope they have the guts to sack em… If he does well I will praise him…

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- Towser said | February 10th 2010 @ 12:59pm | Report comment
  
  Midfielder
  
  Regarding CCM & arranging barbecues & shaving chest hair etc.
  Surely now Lawrie to quote him has “moved upstairs” he can devote more time to communicating with the community.
  Even arranging for Arnie To “Smile for Charity”. I’d like to see that. Should pull in punters from around Australia.
  
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