Border soccer icon Stephen Hayes reflects on memorable journey

BG: Where did it all start for you?

SH: In 1973 the association (AWFA) started and I was a 16-year-old going on 17 at Albury High School. One of the founding clubs was Albury Rovers and it was based around a heap of Albury High School students and teachers. They only lasted one year and ended up merging with (Albury) Hotspurs. I played my first year with Rovers, did my HSC and then moved to Queensland and played with a club called St Helens in Ipswich who were a top club in Queensland at the time. I had a year with them and came back, but by that time Rovers had merged with Hotspurs, so I went back and played with Hotspurs.

BG: When did you take on your first coaching role?

I first started my coaching at Hotspurs as a 19-year-old and Darrel Mills was one of the kids I coached. Millsy became one of the top locally-produced players in the area. I think he could have easily gone on and played at the top level had he been given the opportunity and had he probably wanted to move away from Albury. I still rate him as one of the best players that has ever played around here.

BG: What was the highest level you played at?

SH: Hotspurs then put a team in the NSW Southern League which was called Border Soccer Club, led by Tony Ratcliffe, who was the founding president of the Albury-Wodonga Football Association and the founding president at Hotspurs. He also set up Attack Sports, so he was a bit of pioneer in his day. A bit like what the Afonsos do for Murray United, he thought he'd put a side out and play in the NSW Southern League. It involved teams from Griffith, Wagga, Goulburn, five clubs from Canberra, one from Monaro and another from Queanbeyan. That was in the late 70s-early 80s and we were a semi-professional team at that stage and got paid to play. I cut my teeth there a semi-professional player with the likes of Wayne Fraser and Ian Belgre.

BG: There must have been a lot of travel involved?

SH: I was living in Deniliquin, I got transferred in the Commonwealth Bank. I was playing for Border Soccer Club in the Canberra competition from Deniliquin. Home games were here (Albury) on a Saturday and every second week when we had a home game here, I'd travel back to play for Deni in the Bendigo league. Some weekends I'd be playing in Albury on Saturday and Bendigo on Sunday. They talk about dual-registration and what players can get up to, we've been doing it for a long, long time (laughs). We had our first child (Ryan) at that time, so we were carting him back and forth as well. Away games involved us travelling over on Friday nights from Deni, fish and chips at Berrigan and then coming through to get on a bus to go to Canberra and come back late Saturday night and drive all the way back to Deni on the Sunday. It was very enjoyable, we had lots of mates and had a great time, but unfortunately travel destroyed that competition.

BG: When did you move back to Albury?

SH: We bought the squash courts, so we moved back from Deni and I played a few more games for Border. When the southern league folded, they went back to Melbourne and I resumed coaching. When Border Soccer Club folded, I went to Boomers because that's where my friends had gone. It was my 30^th year at Boomers last year.

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BG: Did you start coaching at Boomers straight away?

SH: I had been coaching on-and-off with Border Soccer Club, but I've been coaching the whole time I've been at Boomers. It started with my son's team as six-year-olds playing in an under-eight competition. After their first year, they lost one home and away game in nine years. That was down at Wangaratta on their tiny, little pitch, I still remember it (laughs). Nine of those kids were in the Riverina team, we got to the semi-finals of the Champion of Champions, were runners-up in the state titles. Josh Kennedy was one of them and Adam Griffith another.

BG: Do you have a coaching highlight?

SH: The highlight of my coaching career was having Josh (Kennedy) on the Victorian pathway and Adam (Griffith) via the NSW pathway and both of them ending up in the same Joeys squad for Australia. We had a number of boys go on to play premier league in various states. What drove them was each other, they wanted to get better and kept pushing themselves to be the best they possible could. But they were enjoying it along the way, there was never any pressure to perform for these kids. You just don't see that very much at the moment because kids have got other distractions in their life and they don't get single-minded and focused like this group was. They were a special group of kids and I was lucky enough to be around at the time they formed. In all that time you have to have a good support crew and I had a terrific group of parents.

BG: You had a busy AWFA cup final day one year?

SH: After taking the boys through, I got to the senior level, I think it was 1998 and I had four teams playing on grand final day. That had been a pretty busy year coaching four teams and that was my introduction to girls football as well.

BG: How was the switch from boys to girls coaching?

SH: My wife said 'you've put all these years into your son, it's about time you do something with your daughters'. I didn't really want to let go of the guys because I enjoyed the camaraderie of being able to coach such a talented group of players. But I had a tremendous run with the girls. In 20 years of coaching with the girls, I think we missed one cup final and won 12 or 13. I still have great memories of taking the girls Riverina team away. Nine Riverina girls represented NSW Country at the national titles. That team included the likes Sally Shipard, Amy Chapman and Georgia Chapman - those three went on to play for Australia. These girls went into the national final as under-14s and they beat Queensland 7-1. Nine of them came back to play for Riverina at the state titles a week later. I think we conceded one goal for the week and we won the state title. It was a group of girls you could put on the park and you didn't have to coach. It was just a pleasure to have these girls because they were such a great group, they got along well, but when they crossed that line they were focused. For Riverina to have nine players in the NSW Country side was unheard of. It's one of my treasured memories of coaching.

BG: Was it tough to step back from senior women's coaching this year?

SH: I thought the year before I had pretty much done my time, but I hung out for one more year after my daughters (Torey and Kiera) left so it didn't look like I was just going to leave when they retired. A lot of the girls had left the area, so we had a brand new group. Steve Kusic had joined the club and his daughter (Bree) came across and he wanted to get into coaching. I didn't want to leave the club without a coach, but there was an opportunity for me to step aside when he was ready to go. He's a quality coach and he's already proven that with Albury City, so I couldn't have left it in better hands. I still support them on a Sunday and Steve and I trade ideas. It's not as if I've gone away from them, I've just taken a half step backwards. I'm still helping the senior men and doing goalkeeper training as well.

BG: Times are obviously very different to when you started, do you have any thoughts on the current state of the game?

SH: I'm still on the board of Football NSW and push the country wagon as much as I can. Australian football has suffered over the last 10 to 15 years because of a change of curriculum by the FFA. We've gone away from fundamental technical training and development, to team-oriented, learn yourself type of stuff. That has been the single reason why we don't have high level skilled individuals in our game at the moment. Coaches in those days were given the instruction that they should stop 'hog' type players, for want of a better word, and stop individual flair to concentrate on everybody passing the ball. We've got exactly what we coached, everybody passes the ball, but there's nobody taking players on. We're not coaching skill to develop individuals to the best of their ability.