Boomers coach Andrew Grove looks at the future of the Albury-Wodonga Football Assocation

STEVE TERVET: Which moments or seasons do you look back on most fondly?

ANDREW GROVE: Winning the league in 2012, when I was first coaching. We had a really good group. I was still only 22 but most of the players were younger than me. Zac Mackenzie was probably the best, he went on to play at higher levels, but they were all state players. I was new to coaching and everything I tried seemed to work. But when I look back on it now, I actually didn't do a lot of coaching. It was just the fact I had a bunch of really good players who knew what to do anyway.

ST: Wasn't that the last silverware Boomers won?

AG: It was - but we've been close a number of times since then. A few years ago, it came down to the last game and Albury United beat us for the league. I don't think we've ever looked back and thought 'we've let it slip' apart from the year we won the league and then lost in the first final. It was 1 v 8 and we lost to St Pat's. We won the league with about four games to spare and felt we could go on to do the double but St Pat's were a bogey team for us that year. We hit the post, missed a penalty and Andy Stevens scored an absolute cracker, top-right corner. That hurt. We made the final against Myrtleford in 2018 but I'd been playing with a dodgy hamstring for a month and hurt it pretty badly in the semi against Wang. I tried to play in the Myrtleford game but I was on one leg and wasn't able to do that much. Myrtleford were by far the better team all year but we didn't compete in that final as much as we would have liked. We felt we were playing well and could have competed so, on a personal level, that was one of the most disappointing games I can remember.

ST: You spent a year in Sydney - what was that like?

AG: I was in my last year of uni and I had to do placement in Sydney, so I wanted to make sure I went somewhere I could play some football as well. I managed to get into the Wollongong Wolves but I only played a few games because I ended up hurting my back. But even just being in that environment opened my eyes to a whole other level of football that I'd never experienced. It was a very different type of environment, going to a professional outfit playing in NPL1 in Sydney, playing with players who went on to play in the A-League, and it definitely opened my eyes to the possibilities of going further.

ST: Did it give you a taste of wanting more?

AG: It did and it didn't because of my back. I had the next couple of years going through a lot of medical and specialist appointments. It brought me back to earth quickly. It was a good experience and it made me a better player and a much better coach, so I'm pleased I gave it a go. But part of the reason why, when Murray United started here, I didn't really go down that path was because I realised I probably can't compete at that level. My body just doesn't allow me to do it.

ST: How frustrating has it been when your body has limited you like that?

AG: Very. It's been the main setback for myself but also for the club going further. When you reach those big games, finals or you're trying to win leagues against the best teams, you need your best players playing well. For example, if Wangaratta doesn't have Burchell playing, they're a much weaker team. Having gone through it as a player and as a coach, I understand both sides of it and it makes it hard. It's disappointing that I haven't been able to play consistently and reach some of those levels that I'd like to and it's disappointing for the club and my team-mates that we haven't been able to get a little bit further.

ST: You did have some involvement at Murray, didn't you?

AG: The year they started, they had Matt Gray as the senior coach and I went as his assistant coach. I was going to coach and play - didn't know how the body was going to go so I was going to manage it as I went - but it all hit the fan when they sacked Matt and brought in Mick Richards for the year. He brought in his own assistant so I was then just going to play. I was worried about that because I knew my body was going to struggle, being expected to play week in, week out. It all changed and didn't fit what I thought I wanted to do over the next few years. At the time, I was 26 and although I was playing good football, I knew I wasn't going to play A-League. If I was 20, playing NPL and moved to Melbourne, that would have been a different scenario.

ST: Was that ever your dream?

AG: I guess it was but it was pretty deep down, never really 'out there' that I wanted to play in the A-League. Maybe it was my shyness, or that opportunity just didn't knock at the right time. We had Doug Hodgson here, coaching us when I was about 17, and he moved down to Melbourne. He had a team and asked me to come down to Melbourne and play when I finished school so there was that option. But I suppose it was the difficult option. I was going to have to move, I didn't know what was going to happen on the uni side of things and I ended up getting a place to study podiatry here. I stayed at home, did uni, kept playing football locally and that was the easier of the two options. Maybe, deep down, I never thought I was good enough to make it, so I didn't pursue it far enough. I'm not sure. But I remember thinking 'this will be fine.' If I'd had a coach who had pushed me harder and said 'you're good enough, you should do this,' maybe that would have changed things.

ST: Are you surprised things didn't work out better at Murray United and how do we ensure talented kids aren't lost to the sport?

AG: I wish Murray United was still going (at senior level) but I understand why it can't. We don't have a big enough population to be running AWFA and a separate Murray United entity at the same time. We don't have the depth of talent to go across both. I sent a lot of players to Murray United and tried to support it as much as I could but in the back of my mind, I never thought it was going to be sustainable, the way it was run and how it was splitting. To compete against the Melbourne teams, you'd need every single one of the best senior players to go across (from AWFA) and play and they never had that. They had half, at best, so they were always going to struggle. They were topping up some from external, they were coming in and out of Melbourne, playing games but not living here and training which, from a coach's point of view, is never going to be sustainable.

ST: How strong a side would that 'best of AWFA' have been?

AG: They definitely would have competed in the NPL. I would have enjoyed that immensely. When we do those State of Origin matches with AWFA, you can see the depth of talent the area has. If you were to make a squad out of that, we could definitely compete.

ST: Do you think soccer will always be attractive to kids in this area?

AG: It's always going to be around. The numbers in miniroos show that soccer is a sought-after sport but it's stagnating and it has done for quite a few years. We need to be more proactive over the next 5-10 years to boost the profile and get it in the same sphere as the Ovens and Murray. There's a lot of tweaking and fine-tuning that needs to happen with AWFA itself. The way it's set up, it's not able to be as proactive as it needs to be. The reason decisions don't get approved is because of the structure of AWFA. It's run by the clubs but the clubs never agree because they're too busy worrying about themselves and can't think about the league as a whole. There are some old and young minds that aren't willing to look at new ideas and change. I was secretary for three years and sitting at EC (executive committee) meetings and seeing how it works, there's a lot of banging your head against a brick wall. You can't grow AWFA as a whole if you're only trying to grow your own club but people don't seem to grasp that. Some do but those who do understand, they might get onto the EC and try to make changes but the rest of the group brings them back down and they end up leaving. There have been some good people on committees that have tried their best and got nowhere, so have given up and even left the sport altogether. That is holding AWFA back. It needs to be completely changed. I like the idea of clubs having responsibility but it can't be stagnated like that. We need to have better representation of each club on the EC and the people that each club nominate need to have voting powers. In the past, an idea is brought up and each club says it needs to go back to their committee. It stalls and months go by before something gets changed. In the end, a lot of things go by the by because it takes too long or it's too hard for things to happen.

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ST: So what changes would you make for the better?

AG: AWFA and Murray United need to co-exist. They don't need to be the same thing but there needs to be the same controlling body. They can't support an AWFA representative team and Murray juniors at the same time. We'll never be able to do justice to those players by doing that because you're splitting the pool and diluting your coaching resources across too many teams. We need to get a single framework for soccer in Albury-Wodonga and representative stuff needs to be down one path. If Murray United became the rep team, you could have shadow players in that pathway but you're still under the same coach and can develop. If you get injuries or unavailability, you can move players between, the same as a senior and reserve team would do. I prefer the Murray United model of player development because, having coached the rep teams, you don't get the same amount of games and experience playing. It's a lot of training and then you go away for a tournament whereas the Murray United model is week in, week out football. You're training two nights a week and then playing a game so I feel the player development is better in that.

ST: What about the way the AWFA draw is structured?

AG: It's a good and a bad thing how we have the club-versus-club draw and mentality. If one age group only has eight teams, they have multiple byes throughout the year and you're not playing. I would hate to see club-versus-club go but it might need to, at least in the juniors. There are so many gaps currently so they may need to move away from that.

ST: Would playing games on Saturday, rather than the current Sunday time slot, make a difference?

AG: As an older person who has to work on Monday, I would much prefer to play on Saturday. At the moment, AWFA is split because we have the miniroos on Saturday and juniors and seniors playing on Sunday. That makes the transition from miniroos into juniors harder. For me, it makes sense to have miniroos and juniors together on Sunday, so they wouldn't clash with Auskick, and that would allow senior football to be played on Saturday. I think that would attract more senior players and encourage older players to stay longer in the game.

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