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JOE KELLY
2001
WON 11 , DREW 2 , LOST 11
Overview : Joe Kelly was the inaugural Phoenix head coach and with that job came a wide range of problems and issues. He was in the job for only a year due to work commitments forcing his move away from the South West at the end of 2001, but his philosophy of attacking football through hard physical work left a lasting impression on players and for the few remaining players who played under him, his style and quotes are fondly remembered to this day. Kelly had Phil Woodcock as his assistant coach and David Rodgers as youth coach. He guided Phoenix to a top half finish in the First Division-South league, allowing Phoenix to enter the play offs for promotion, where they ended up finishing sixth overall for the season.
Challenges : Uniting a bunch of players who had spent their careers playing against each other. Trying to eliminate sections within the club-those who had been with Ashfield-Bunbury previously stuck together, and those from all other SWSA clubs formed another group. Some high profile players didn't take to the new club and/or system, making the coach's job alot harder. Constant fueding coming from the then SWRSC caused instability and though Phoenix was launched amid a blaze of golry and publicity, the then SWRSC inactivity and lack of direction soon became evident to players and coaches. Also, a late season move from Soccerdrome to Forrest Park for training disrupted things during the play offs.
Successes : Made quarter final of the Cup competition, a feat which has not been close to being equalled since. After a mid season revolt by some high profile players following a couple of poor results, Kelly steadied and the team left behind rallied behind him, while others fell by their own sword. Despite the problems he had off the field with some players, still never let it affect his team selection to the detriment of results. Had three wins in a row mid season to get out of relegation trouble and into the Top 4. Exposed those who weren't fully behind the cause and was always willing to take a fight on himself. Became a cult hero to some players by seasons end and some of his sayings are still reproduced today.
Famous words :
"Lets get out nice and early(for a warm up) so Haysey can get his demented head around it."
"Get up his freckle!"
"Take Haysey...he can run all day, got an engine like a Tiger, but he can't pass water. If you could he'd be playing for Perth Glory."
IN HIS OWN WORDS :
2001 Space Odyssey:
The film has become famous due to its groundbreaking visual effects and ambiguous, abstract nature.
Perfect description of the inaugural year at Phoenix.
For those who are not too aware of how it all started and my side of the story:
My first insight into the soon to be formed (in my opinion) south west rep side was when my old pal (and I sincerely mean that) Ivan Garic and I were speaking after his beloved Bunbury United suffered their first defeat in the South West competition on Sundays. This was at the hands of Australind who I was coaching at the time after being brought out of retirement by the committee at Australind. I knew of the unrest at the 'Joint Venture' of Ashfield and the Bunbury side and Ivan hinted that there might be changes in the next year. Suffering from premature extrapolation I put 2 and 2 together and made 5. Anyway as things turned out I was right. The split happened and Ivan did a tremendous job in making sure that the South West would have a team in the semi pro league.
Now came the hard part, how would the public be convinced this was not a sham and a front to make Bunbury Untied even more powerful. At this point in time there was perceived to be two factions in football, one who loved Ivan and the others who disliked him, unfortunately for Ivan the majority of the south west soccer fraternity were in the latter camp.
My own personal opinion was that Ivan was doing a magnificent job for football in general and not just the South West region. I also felt that the short sightedness and unwillingness of others to work with Ivan towards a joint team earlier was ludicrous and detrimental to football. Ivan and I have never had an argument or even a heated discussion; I believe we both respected each others opinions on the game. There were too many ego’s in the south west on how it used to be run and they didn’t need another.
Who was going to be the coach? Never being one to back down from a challenge I applied and got the position as senior coach, having played and coached state league in UK, Sydney and Brisbane and locally at Collie and Australind. I felt I could pull the disparate groups together and get on with the job of creating a good team. Coaching and managing the Collie team should have put me in good stead as this was a mini south west environment with different political factions ruining having a very good team, but that’s another story.
When I got the position it raised a few eyebrows as I was not known as a yes man. I did listen to people who knew what they were talking about, took that into consideration and strategy if relevant and then put my plan into action.
Let me just clarify the position, it was as senior coach of South West Phoenix, responsible for all teams, coaches and development of players.
The first cab of the rank that undermined my position was the appointment of a youth coach before my job was confirmed. My views on how this turned out are well documented and ably described in some of the news items in your site, so I won’t go over old ground.
The next bone of contention was some ex Bunbury United players voicing their grievances which I thought I had dealt with, only to find that paperwork was submitted to the committee regarding my coaching style. This led to 4 or 5 players who would not have made the grade anyway leaving the club before the season started. The other 45 or so players stayed so I couldn’t have been that bad. The bad taste that left in my mouth could not be brushed away easily. The support I received from all South West supporters and committees was excellent, including Bunbury United’s.
Throughout the season I had other problems with players that I felt were not giving their all and I let them know it. Some players were dropped and even a resignation came in from the youth coach who didn’t think I was being reasonable. The resignation was discussed at committee level and was eventually withdrawn.
Anything I said seemed to get back to some person who didn’t agree and raised issue with anyone that cared to listen. Again I must say that most of the issues came from Ex Bunbury United players and associates. Some of my Ex Bunbury United players were in my opinion, some of my better players had no problems with me whatsoever (none that they voiced to me anyway) such as: Savo Garic, Stevie Rodgers, Alex Cosenza, The Trim brothers and the youngsters coming through.
Anyway all the problems were dealt with and we got on with playing the game.
One of the first areas I addressed was getting a coach with the same views as me to help me mould teams together playing some good football. I couldn’t get anyone else so I approached Phil Woodcock (HA HA – only kidding Phil).
Phil and I had shared many beers when he played for me at Australind and had some great ideas of his own so it was an easy job in picking him and thankfully he accepted. Ray Suttie was also approached so I could have a translator if needed again thankfully Ray also joined the coaching team.
The coaching team then got together, identified and chased players we would like to approach, got some, lost others (it’s a pity Caesar Vallesi retired), put training and game plans in place and got the show on the road.
There were the detractors also from the playing and coaching side of things. Another issue pointed out to me was my animation and vociferousness on the sidelines. I quickly pointed out to the people concerned that they should watch the English Premier league and show me a manager who sits on his freckle calmly watching the game, not many. However this point came up a few times, I never did like telling someone something more than twice.
Another bugbear for me was to hear from some of my confidants that certain factions were asking why I kept on playing players like David Suttie and Greg Hayes. These two guys were two of the first names on my team sheet. They covered every inch of the park and always were on hand to help and support the defence or forward line and they had their fair share of skills. If you asked any of the players who played with David and Greg if they would have preferred anyone else in front or behind them, I think you will find the answer would have been ‘No way’.
Stephen Suttie was also mentioned as my favourite and why was I playing him, look at the goals the boy scores and still is scoring. Savo Garic recognised Stephen as a very good centre forward and that was good enough for me.
The players that stayed with us were excellent, they all wanted to learn. I would like to think that we had the team playing flowing football and the players all learned something new and innovative as well as being part of a disciplined unit. The first year was very interesting. It was unfortunate that my work commitments changed. I would have loved to have coached the following year where more youth would have been blooded and more time would have been spent on our free flowing style, who knows what could have happened.
One final point, although this was a paid position I never received a cent from South West Phoenix or anyone else. So you can work out for yourself that it was not money that motivated using my own vehicle coming down from Allanson twice a week, sometimes more for training and to get to Perth for the games. It was love of the game, the same as Ivan’s.
Good luck people.
Joe Kelly