Image: Marcia Riederer
Bendigo City is facing an uphill battle to kickstart its season and retain its place in the NPL2.
Despite a first goal and point on the weekend, Srecko Baresic-Nikic has quit with immediate effect.
However, results have not seemingly been the catalyst, rather issues pertaining to committee involvement in the day-to-day running of squad as reported by local media outlets, described by president Robyn Williams as involving “the values of the club” in the Bendigo Weekly.
“It was on the grounds that our aim is to avoid relegation, and we need the group performing at its best to do that,” she continued.
The Bendigo Advertiser mentioned Baresic-Nikic blamed “a fallout with some unnamed members of the committee” and “claimed a decision to bench players, who had either missed or arrived late to training sessions and team meeting, had not sat well with those players and some committee members, causing dissension between coach and committee”.
It’s not the first time backroom issues have plagued FC Bendigo/Bendigo City in the NPL era, with a rebrand followed by a previous committee quitting in 2015, the turnaround of seven senior coaches (Srecko-Baresic Nikic joining Jose Santamarta, Marco Kueck, Esteban Quintas, Greg Thomas and Steve Martin to have come and gone) along with a high-profile technical director in Fab Soncin, and the decimation of the senior squad in which none of the senior players of the early seasons of the NPL have been retained.
Srecko-Baresic came with pedigree coaching overseas and locally and had given the likes of Australian senior and youth representatives Ivan Franjic and Thomas Deng their starts in first-team football. On paper it was a sensible signing of an experienced coach – who had runs on the board in developing youthful and inexperienced footballers – to guide a squad statistically lacking the level of NPL experience of its competitors.
“The most challenging part is the age and lack of experience in my team. NPL2 is full of experienced players, but I am confident that with hard work we will achieve our goal to remain in the league this season and continue to develop and build up this great club,” he told TCF in December 2016.
Baresic-Nikic is now replaced by former general manager of Bendigo Bombers Football Club, Peter Lodewijks, who reportedly was an Ajax youth. He takes the reins of a side with one point and a -16 goal difference in its first five games.
City came last in the West last season – despite improved results and performances under Santamarta – and is currently on a similar trajectory, just with the 2017 carrying the extra caveat of relegation with it, and numerous SL1 clubs champing at the bit to earn promotion with considerable budgets and high-profile signings in the off-season. If the current situation at the club isn’t rectified soon, the reality is there may not be regional representation in Bendigo in Victoria’s premier competition in 2018.