Cooks Hill United Football Club have secured a major coup with the appointment of former Newcastle Jets stalwart Craig Deans as technical director.
The 48-year-old was a mainstay at the Jets since their foundation season, firstly as a player then as a youth-team and W-League coach and in three stints as A-League head coach - twice in a caretaker capacity before a full-time stint in 2020-21.
He was acting as football operations manager before parting ways with the club in April.
Deans told the Newcastle Herald he had not intended to be back in football so soon but was enticed by Cooks Hill's plans to continue building the club for its members.
"I was enjoying having a break but when I spoke to the guys here, just the drive they have and the passion they have for trying to do the right thing by football and by the kids in the area, it was exciting for me," Deans said.
"There has to be a purpose to what you're doing and I don't think there was a purpose to what I was doing there and that was probably in stark contrast to talking to the guys here.
"OK, it's an NPL level club but they have some big ambitions and they have a purpose to what they want to do. For me the purpose wasn't there at the Jets, and good luck to them. I'm sure they'll find what they want to do and where they want to go. But for me it wasn't the time or the place and it was time to go. I don't have any regrets at all. I know I made the right decision and I'm looking forward to starting new."
Cooks Hill have over 1000 members across juniors and seniors, playing community level football up to premier with the club gaining an NPL Northern NSW licence this year.
Deans hopes to help develop Cooks Hill players at all levels.
"My own journey to professional football was through a club like this," Deans said.
"I didn't come through institutes or academies. I made my way through fourth division junior football in WA. There's going to be kids here that are going to be good enough to play NPL and hopefully there's kids here that are good enough to play A-League men and women.
"It's a big club and I want to give opportunities to all of the players here, whether they're boys or girls. They deserve equal attention. With my background in women's football, I'm going to make sure that that's definitely happening here and the focus is on the whole club not just the men's team or the boys' side of the academy. There's a lot of girls here as well."
Deans' new role will include working with club coaches as well as attending training sessions and games.
"Obviously there's a lot of juniors here, so it's difficult to get to all of them but my role is more to work with the coaches that are working day to day with those people and give them some tools that they can filter back down to the kids," Deans said.
"I read an interesting article this week talking about why the Australian national team is in the situation it's in now and a lot of it was over-coaching and kids not having a connection with the club. You don't have to micromanage every moment of every kid's career. You can actually leave them alone and let them explore for themselves how to become a footballer. You just need people around them to point them in the right direction.
"I'm on the end of the phone and I'll be at training and at games and helping as much as I can."
Cooks Hill president Jeff Evans described Deans' appointment as the final step towards their objective of building strong footballers as well as a strong community around the club.
Another important step has been upgrading their playing surfaces at National Park and Fearnley Dawes Athletics Field
"Craig is part of a bigger picture to give our members the best experience possible in football," Evans said.
"One is being facilities. One million dollars has been spent across our major grounds. The other is giving every member the opportunity to reach their potential. We've achieved that by getting the men into the NPL in the last few years and certainly the women's NPL is on the horizon in the future.
"The last piece of the puzzle is high-quality coaching and football education. We think bringing in Craig will help to give our members, not just in the NPL but across all of our community grades, a real uplift in that quality."
