Northcote City’s Alex Gymnopoulos has become the first coaching casualty of the new NPL season, receiving the tap on the shoulder after just seven rounds into the season, which has seen his beloved Northcote hit rock-bottom with just one point and one goal to its credit.
A loyal servant of the club who has coached the reserves and youth teams for the last 10 years, Gymnopoulos was appointed to his first senior coaching role at the end of last season after Goran Lozanovski’s resignation.
Club vice president and close friend Peter Kotsiris says: “I can’t comment on anything as to how, what, when and why the coach got sacked. All I can say to you is a decision has been made by the rest of the committee and the club has to move forward and we need to make changes to try and survive in this league right now because it’s going to be very difficult.
“The sad thing is, we all love Alex, and we’ve got a lot of respect for the work he’s done at the club. He’s a club legend. It was always going to be difficult whoever made that call. So it’s tough. It’s part of football. Kenny Dalgleish Liverpool legend – he was sacked. Kevin Bartlett was a Richmond legend and he was sacked. At the end of the day, it’s a sad situation. It’s a disappointing situation. Because of circumstances they’ve come to that decision.”
The decision to fire a favourite son from the coaching role may be considered a brave move by some, but others may see it as a desperate move, clutching at straws in a bid to survive.
It begs the question whether Gymnopoulos was given every opportunity to succeed, given he’d expressed concerns on the eve of the season that he had no recognised or experienced strikers at his disposal.
“It’s a tough question,” Kotsiris says. “At the end of the day, I don’t know – because he hasn’t had the opportunity to see out the season. I would probably say no.
“I just think from the club’s point of view, people felt a decision had to be made in relation to the coaching staff and the playing personnel, and that decision was made to release Alex of his duties. Me personally, I’m shattered and gutted for Alex as an individual. But knowing Alex, I’m sure he’ll bounce back and he’s going to become an even better coach because of this. But I’ve always said categorically, I don’t think he was coaching badly. I just think it was the question of the cattle. That’s about it.”
When asked if he thinks the current squad could’ve got better results under a more experienced coach, Kotsiris replies, “no, I don’t think Jose Mourinho could coach this team at present”.
Kotiris added that the club was currently hoping to announce new signings to the playing roster later in the week, but was unable to comment on the search for a new coach, stating he is not part of the process.
At the time of writing, the club had yet to announce a new coach.