Coaches like Anthony Gray from Armidale City Westside FC are important leaders in the game and one of the key reasons players return each season.
People become a coach for many reasons including building relationships, sharing the love of football with a team, being rewarded through results, enhancing leadership skills and being a role model.
For Gray, it was a way to help rebuild and give back to his boyhood football club.
“I started playing as a five-year-old in Armidale and went through the ranks until I made my senior first grade debut at 14. I played until I was 18 and won a few premierships before I left town and moved to Sydney,” Gray said.
“After 17 years, I moved back to Armidale and saw where the club was at and I wanted to be a part of repairing our club and restoring it back to glory.
“I took on the first grade team as a player and coach. I also coached my children’s junior teams as well.”
Armidale City Westside FC have gone from strength to strength since Gray’s return in 2017, returning the senior men’s side back to the local premier league.
“It has been a process to get to where we are now. We were in the regional premier league and then were in the local competition. We really had to go on a building journey,” Gray said.
“We started to get a lot better in the local competition and started to recruit better players. Then the opportunity came up for us to move back up.
“By 2022 we won the premiership to get back into the premier league. We have been up the top end of the competition ever since.
“Winning the 2022 grand final for the first time in 20 years and seeing a group of 17 and 18-year-olds get us there was amazing. It was pretty special to coach and play in the team.”
Gray said that coaching has given him valuable skills that transcend outside of football and have helped him impact his and his players’ lives.
“The biggest thing that I have learned and am still learning is resilience. It is pretty tough when you have to drop players especially when we live in a small community,” Gray said.
“You are a mentor as well as a coach talking to kids about their future. Men and boys are still closed off and don’t talk about a lot of things. So I like to be someone that they can talk to.
“It is about how you build the culture of the club and what your senior players do.”
Gray was excited about his future in football and to see what his team and club could achieve.
“We have put an expression of interest in for Northern NSW Football’s Regional Super League for our men’s and women’s teams. We hope that is successful,” Gray said.
“Coaching is something that I want to continue to pursue so that I can turn around in 15 to 30 years and see that there is a Socceroo or Matilda from Armidale.”
Registrations for the 2025 season are now open. Find out more and register to be a coach HERE.
