Dixon to depart rising Seagulls
NORTH Shore has been dealt a blow, with star midfielder Nick Dixon leaving the club.
Dixon has stood down as playing co-coach at the Seagulls, with the reigning club best-and-fairest winner to take on a similar role at Old Geelong in the Victorian Amateur Football Association.
Dixon, who is a psychologist in Melbourne, said an increased workload was going to make it difficult to play and coach in the GFL.
“Won’t be able to do either (play or coach) just with work being pretty full on up in Melbourne,” he said.
“Even the second-half of (this) year it got really difficult and then looking forward to a whole year (next) year, just thought it wouldn’t be sustainable.
“Obviously not being able to train at all and even game days would’ve been a struggle as well coming down from Melbourne because I’ll be doing some Saturday mornings as well.
“It just got to a level where I just don’t think it would have been able to work, obviously I tried to think about every situation where we could have made it work.”
Dixon said telling the playing group was the “toughest thing” about leaving.
“It was obviously very tough, the support and the respect they’ve given me over the last two years has been amazing,” he said.
“I’ll always be thankful for the club giving me a chance, I started coaching when I was 24 which is a bit of a big risk for the club to take such a young person to coach the club.
Dixon said he would loved to have continued to be a part of North Shore’s rise up the GFL ladder, but was happy that the side was more competitive now than when he first arrived at the club.
“Obviously you’d love to be a part of it,” he said.
“But I think the positive note is that we are on the rise and starting to really match it with middle-of-the-road teams but also hopefully we can start matching it and beating the top teams as well.”