Coach Terry Antoniadis has ended his short but successful return to Western Suburbs on the eve of pre-season. After bringing championship success to the State League NW1 club in 2015, their 50th anniversary year, coach Antoniadis surprised many by resigning.

Antoniadis told Neos Kosmos that the decision to resign was a difficult one for him to make. “It is hard because the most difficult thing was leaving the players – a fantastic group of players.”

The decision wasn’t made any easier by the fact that Antoniadis has a long history with the club where he started playing football as a junior.

Antoniadis says the decision to resign came about fairly recently and unexpectedly. He was thinking in the back of his mind of just having a short break before getting back into it again when the pre-season came around in Dec-January. But as he puts it, “probably about two-three weeks ago, some doubts started to creep in for the first time and the more I kind of sat down and thought about things, the decision became a bit more clear”.

He says there were a couple of factors influencing his decision. “Just some personal things. Spend some more time with the family, just take a step back and put more time and energy into that.

“Also, despite our successes on the park this year, there were probably some things going on behind the scenes that were tough. There were some fantastic people behind the scenes who put in a lot of really hard work. You know you can’t achieve what we did without everybody buying in. There were one or two things that took place that I felt very disappointed by. That was probably another factor – a small factor.”

According to Antoniadis, the WS players were surprised and disappointed when they learnt of his resignation, but on the whole they have been very supportive and respected his decision to leave. “It speaks volumes of them for being so understanding,” he says.

Antoniadis is considering a couple of options away from coaching a senior team.
Upgrading his coaching qualifications is one.

He’s already had an offer to take up a sort of technical director of coaching role at a newer club – a less demanding role, time-wise, compared to a full-time senior coach’s position.

“But ultimately, I think, being the sort of person I am, being competitive, I will miss the week-to-week planning and preparation for the game, game day and all that sort of thing. So in my mind, it’s a 12-month hiatus, and if I still feel the passion and hunger to get back into it, then I would.”