Mariners boss bids for A-League title 10 years after missing final as a player

MELBOURNE : Ten years after suspension cost Nick Montgomery his place in the A-League championship match as a Central Coast player, the Yorkshireman will look to win one as coach of the Mariners in Saturday's title-deciding 'Grand Final' against Melbourne City.

Having been sent off in the 2013 semi-finals, then-midfielder Montgomery had to watch from the sidelines as Graham Arnold's team claimed the club's first and only A-League trophy with a 2-0 victory over Western Sydney Wanderers.

It was a bitter pill to swallow for the former Sheffield United stalwart, who would go on to captain the Mariners through some of their bleakest years before helping revive them from the coach's box.

"Ten years ago, we won the final during my first season here as a player. I saw what it meant to the community. Then I’ve also seen the really tough times," he told reporters this week.

"Just to take the team into the final as the coach is something that I'm really proud of and I can’t wait for Saturday."

Most of Australia's neutral fans will back the Mariners over Melbourne City, who are owned by the powerful Emirati-controlled City Football Group and are playing their third successive Grand Final.

Based in Gosford, a sleepy coastal town an hour north of Sydney, the Mariners are the archetypal underdogs, renowned for wafer-thin budgets and struggling to secure sponsors.

Operating in the league's smallest regional market, they have never been a destination club for the country's brightest talents, leaving them largely to make do with their own.

Montgomery managed the club's youth academy for two years before succeeding former head coach Alen Stajcic in 2021, and a number of his prodigies are now key players including left back Jacob Farrell and