Major league awaits
LOCAL products starring in the W-League and the ALeague in future years – that’s what it is all about as far as the rebirth of Gold Coast United for this season’s NPL competition.
Men’s vice-captain, Englishman James Coutts, believes there are already a number of youngsters ready to take the big step from NPL in Queensland to the big stage that is A-League.
And his women’s team vicecaptain counterpart Eloise Fryer, who used to travel from Lismore to watch Gold Coast United go around in the ALeague at Cbus Super Stadium, caught the national league bug.
“Watching the A-League you hope that one day you can be a part of something like that,” Fryer said.
Coutts, who was playing coach last year in the NPL Victoria with Murray United, sees nothing but positives to come from the reincarnation of Gold Coast United FC.
“One of the reasons I came here was because it is a new club and I know how hard it can be,” Coutts said.
“I know that with a lot of hard work and passion behind the scenes this club can get to where it wants to be, which is obviously back in the ALeague.
“But first it is going to be little steps along the journey – you can’t look too far ahead. We know where we want to get to but before that there is a lot of hard work in between.”
At 30, Coutts is a senior in a squad with an average age of 21.
“Again that was one of the reasons I wanted to come here as well – I’m big on youth development, I’m big on helping young players,” he said.
“At Murray we had a very young group and we had a lot of young players come through the system.
“I look at here and some of the young players we have got within the academy and the 20s and 18s group is pretty frightening.
“So if we can develop those boys and even those who have already broken into the senior group, if they are developed properly, then there’s no reason why there’s not a few future A-League players within our ranks already.”
Fryer loves the idea of a WLeague derby between Brisbane and the Gold Coast.
“That would be awesome,” she said. “I feel like the atmosphere would be unreal for sure and just the whole, I think for us girls playing against them, would be awesome and we would just lift so much more.”
Last week, in Round 1, United’s men won 3-1 in Cairns and the women lost 3-4 to Mitchelton.