Garbhan COUGHLAN

Wilkinson collected the coach of the year award for the fifth time while his first team staff took the two other big club-wide awards. Seamus Marten was named Club Person in recognition of a big workload, where he is pretty much working between two beats as first team manager, and a management committee member. Chairman Wayne Bates paid tribute to his former teammate. "I played alongside Seamus for a couple of northern league matches in 2005, before his journey in football took him to the far more rarefied atmosphere of postings with Oceania and NZ Football, and it has only been in recent years that we have come to appreciate his multi-faceted input and abilities at club level. Apart from being first team manager, he serves on the club committee, now looks after the matchday programme, is the person to blame for matchday music, and indeed was the major force behind setting up our temporary support infrastructure on Gower 6. Seamus has quickly become a pillar of our club. It marks a club career recognition-high for Marten, who made his first team debut as goalkeeper away to West Auckland in 2005. The Club Personality award was shared between new first team assistant to the manager, Danny Milner, and new club secretary Pete Lawrence. But Wilkinson also noted the input of first team staff who didn’t win a gong. “Mouch (Neil Mouncher) has bounced in and out with his scathing, cutting feedback which has helped keep our young squad grounded. Jimmy the Phys kept us healthy and also brought Michaela which was a huge, huge benefit to the club. Harry (Trethowan) was the perfect foil for my constant misery and negativity with his almost ignorant positivity and has been really great around the young lads. "Thanks are also due to Zeya Hussaini as reserve team coach. I know he winds people up, but he also gets through a power of work and has been left with a really big group this year so want to give him a shout out. Wilkinson, who is standing down at the end of the season, reflected how his first game as Melville coach was against Waitemata on Gower 2 in 2017 with five players from that fixture still in the squad today. “Also, of our first team regulars there are six who were part of the Melville U14 group that year. “To see them starting to just not feature but do really well is a really good blueprint for the club going forward, combined with looking after good senior players who care about the club.