David Mitchell has stepped down as Perth Glory coach with immediate effect, with former North Queensland coach Ian Ferguson to take control of the out-of form club starting with the clash against the Fury in Townsville.
David Mitchell has stepped down as Perth Glory coach with immediate effect, with former North Queensland coach Ian Ferguson to take control of the out-of form club starting with the clash against the Fury in Townsville.
Mitchell will assume a director of football role with the club after he initiated discussions with chairman Tony Sage about his future in the head coaching position.
Perth made an excellent start to the season but a horror stretch of four consecutive losses led to Mitchell making his decision after previously discussing the football director role with Sage at the end of last season.
“Probably about six months, seven months,” was Mitchell’s response when asked how long he’d been contemplating such a move. “It’s been that long.”
“So it’s something that Tony in the big picture sees that’s where the club wants to go and I certainly want to be part of the club and I will do everything I can to help the club in a winning way.”
“Obviously when you’ve lost four it’s time to reflect on things a little bit.”
“But in general, I’m very happy with the way I’ve brought the club forward, with the help of Tony and the directors, the club’s in a much sounder position than it was a couple of years ago when I took over.”
Mitchell became coach midway through the 2007-08 season after Ron Smith was sacked. But Sage was adamant this wasn’t a similar scenario, saying the move was completely Mitchell’s decision.
“Mitch came to me,” declared Sage. “It wasn’t the other way around.”
“He tapped me on the shoulder, so he just said, ‘look in the best interests of the footy club, I think the best thing for me to do is put my hand up, to leave’.”
“The club is suffering, I mean it has, the crowds have gone down, corporates are asking questions, so we talked about it.”
“This didn’t happen lightly,” he added, saying Mitchell and himself spent the weekend in Sydney discussing the move over the Australia v Paraguay clash on Saturday night.
“But the club’s lost four games in a row, two at a home. In the history of the club it hasn’t happened, losing four in a row, even in our worse stretch of 19 games, it didn’t happen.”
“I was (prepared to wait longer) but Mitch, tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘this is the best interest of the football club right now’.”
Mitchell, himself, felt he hadn’t lost the players.
“Certainly not,” he said. “There’s a lot of emotion there with the players, I’m very close with some of them. I think they’re disappointed as Tony mentioned, they’re upset.”
