The Greatest Little Club on Earth​

Thursday, 17 October
Paramount+ delves into the storied history of the Central Coast Mariners football club with the exclusive documentary, The Greatest Little Club on Earth. This documentary traces the club’s meteoric rise, subsequent struggles, and recent revival, exploring the unique culture and community support that have defined its journey. Directed by Nick Piper, the film offers an intimate look at the Mariners’ return to form.

https://www.tvcentral.com.au/streaming/parmount-streaming/october-2024-on-paramount/

Hope it covers all those relegation battles they miraculously survived

Oh snap lol 

don't be nasty if you can't say something nice then say nothing at all

https://youtu.be/IobNcpiwpSc?si=tobI6qzEs9nSiouf

Im keen to watch it Mid but dont have Paramount... please let me know if/when it pops up somewhere more visible :)

Class this love a good doco 

I hope they interview the local fans cover how the community got around them 

OK

I been saying for a long time now we are a community club ... formed in a once Rugby League heartland... the club has from day one connected with our local association and talked constantly to local clubs...

Some highlights for me anyway .... pre the Mariners there where roughly 5K junior football players, 4K league players and, 2 k union players.... today its roughly 18k junior Football players, 2.5k League players and just over a K union players with AFL having only three teams.

In the association there are 24 teams, each Mariners player is allocated a team, and that player must attend a number of functions and do things with the club they are appointed to things like end of season, club nights as well as run some training sections.

The biggie regarding quality, roughly 8 years ago could have been a little longer, the general quality from a technical side of things on the coast was not the best... so the club started a program were any coach of a local association team could attend the Mariners training and be invited to see how to train teams... the number of local coaches were their skill and knowledge levels has gone thu the roof is amazing also the Mariners run coaching class for local association coaches.

Another big one is we have Australia's only private school from years 4 thu to year 12 that teaches Football... essentially training before school and after school at a high level and six former Mariner players run the coaching at the school...

We have had a youth academy since season 1, and that yout academy has produced many Socceroos and some Socceroo captains... 

Our crowds relative the our population are quite high...

Mon, heaps of work within the community as well I just pointed out how the club decided with no budget, no friends in council, and no media friends, they would connect to Football people actually playing.... and BTW each club at least once per year gets the entire Mariners teams including coaching staff to run a training session at their club....

The true success story of the A league.

Abso-farkin-lootely brilliant.....  Just wonderful seriously... Now, to take things a step further, wouldnt it be great that, through all that wonderful work, another 1-2 clubs in the region can get the opportunity to push for promotion into the NST and (heaven forbid one day) into the Aleague....... What a football heartland it can trully become....  its the capping of ambition I despise mate, not clubs doing honest graft with their communities.... 

I agree, we simply see different pathways to get there... 

So midfielder a question to you who's responsible for your success is it the owner, the admin the gaffer or all the above? 

Cool, now if only those responsible for actively blocking that pathway can get out of the way we can at least make a start :)

That's f ing awesome

CCM are a credit to the A-league. If only some of the bigger clubs had the same community connection.

Brisbane IS trying :)

It started with the original owner and CEO...heavily supported by the coach at the time.... it went something like this we can't compete with capital city teams pertaining to budget etc so we need to develop Australia's best and aim for Asia's best academy so we can develop our own players  and on sell them overseas...

Further to this we need the support of the community which we did not have as a Rugby League team had just folded it was called the "Norther Eagles" and the community and council etc business all wanted the league team or a league team back...

With few to no local friends, our then owner, CEO who came from an association background... i.e. owner from western Sydney associations and CEO from southern Sydney associations... they decided upon our marketing would be to association grass clubs and all we could offer was help with training and to help on club days.... then that was extended to school visits with players assigned to key schools and teachers offered coaching training similar to association coaches.

The new owner came in, changed little but his first CEO through it was rubbish he got licked out ... our next CEO we got from the Wanders but he played for a local association teams and he drove the player connection even harder.

The current owner is right behind it...

You will find most Mariners as proud an in some cases more proud of the academy than the first team...

In simple teams its been part of the clubs D & A from before the A-L started... improve the technical skills of everyone on the Coast and connect to those playing the game to build the fan base from...

A client of mine is in marketing and he told me a couple of years ago when you have SFA money to spend, in a hostile environment, the concept of connecting to your own and building strong connections with those with similar minds is brilliant... 

Says the Word Salad Master

Maybe another 20 years and we'll all be singing Kumbaya

Then maybe another 20

Very interesting. Well it's definitely going to be a challenging season for your mob this year but all the best I'm excited for the doco next week 

Much of the Mariners story is told in this outstanding work...

Political Football: Lawrie McKinna's Dangerous Truth by Adrian Deans | Goodreads

its good for the whole of Football actually

No one comes to this discussion with clean hands... few come to this discussion without already having dismissed the opinion of others .... 

Worst is most think the answer is simple when IMO its complex and has much to do with organisational behavioural science  

Ok 🥶

Like the one SM did in '79?

Like the one SM did in '79?

I remember when the Aleague was just being established and was in its embryonic stages.

Whilst Sydney FC was chasing the title of Bling FC and big name signings, CCM basically encircled Eastern Sydney, the association affiliations,  at the end was embarrassingly one sided, to the point i remember there were complaints made by Sydney FC when they realised.

The imbalance was only rectified with the introduction of WS. 

Youve had 5 decades to get over the pain... still hurts I see

Oh no, how utterly disappointing. SO the whole "community outreach" is just a marketing/branding exercise to get as many paying customers through the turnstiles for ONE franchise as possible NOT an a genuine attempt to raise the level and ambition of all the other clubs in the football ecosystem so that we can maybe one day have hundreds of clubs developing players??? Oh no, thats just so shit..... I shouldnt be surprised but disappointing nonetheless...

No idea, but they'd be 20 years old as well

Please tell the story, and explain it's relevance

I think he is alluding to the fact that many who want P/R have fought against it in the past for their own benefit and that it's all swings and roundabouts....but that's just how I took it.