International flavours add spice to CBS Strikers

By Craig Westcot

Longtime soccer coach and trainer Tony Mullet is enjoying a veteran’s success in his first year as head coach of the CBS Strikers, shepherding the squad to a Challenge Cup championship appearance this month and towards Canada’s amateur championships in October.
The Strikers lost 3-0 in the provincial championship, played at Topsail Turf, to perennial top dogs Holy Cross Crusaders, but by all accounts, it was a closer contest than was reflected in the score.
“The competitiveness was really there,” said Mullett, himself a former Holy Cross player. “The two teams were confident enough that they were trying to play, there was no foolishness going on, there was no cheap stuff. It was just good football with a lot of talent. And that was the fun part about it.”
Mullett came to CBS after four seasons with Paradise soccer, and many years of experience before that with the St. John’s association and a year with Mount Pearl Soccer.
“I had a few players who followed me over from Paradise,” said Mullett. “And it’s a pretty diverse group of people (on the CBS team). If you look at the lineup we’ve got a mix. I’ve got a couple of players from Jordan, I’ve got a couple from Jamaica – it’s a diverse group of players. It’s pretty cool when you think about it and they all get along pretty good.”
Mullett said the New Canadians in the lineup bring a lot of excitement. But they are also inexperienced when it comes to play-off games.
“On the team there’s not one player who played in a final before, other than Fambulleh Fomba,” said Mullett. “For the starting 11 in the final it was the first time for everybody on that team to play in a final. So, the pressure wasn’t really anything they were used to. And it was a first for a lot of them playing Challenge Cup (soccer). It was interesting.”
Mullett said he started the season by presenting a plan and asking the players to buy in.
“I said you’re either in or you’re out, we can’t go halfway, because it doesn’t work that way,” he said. “They bought into the program, and we developed a culture that you show up to train and when you play, you play your best, and then that culture will turn into a winning environment. That kind of culture actually creates good results. Now I’m not telling you that we never had any issues over the year, but we managed to get through those and fix them up and stay on course.”
Besides the talent and skill of the players, Mullett said the team owes a lot of its success to his coaching and support staff including assistant coaches Paul North, who came with him from Paradise, and Steve Grandy, who is a four-year veteran of the CBS organization, and manager Tracey Carroll who last year was the Newfoundland and Labrador Soccer Association’s Volunteer of the Year.
“It makes it a lot of fun,” said Mullett. “And here we are now waiting to go to a national (championship tournament) and hopefully have a good performance with aspirations that, you know what, this could be an annual thing.”
Newfoundland is hosting the national men’s amateur championship this year at King George V Park in St. John’s starting on October 9. CBS earned its right to participate in the tournament last year, while Holy Cross earned its berth by winning this year’s provincial Challenge Cup.
Mullett noted both teams have key players who may not be available in the interim for practice because they are expected to play with the Memorial University Seahawks and probably won’t be released to rejoin their Challenge Cup teams until the weekend of the tournament. Meanwhile, the strength of the teams his young squad will face at the national championships will be educational.
“It’s going to be a higher level than they’re used to here,” Mullett allowed. “They can expect a faster, stronger, more physical style of play. From province to province the teams differ. We’ll be in a strong pool against Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba… Fitness is going to be a big part of it. It will be a culture shock, but my job as coach is to get them prepared. Every team is a hard team and they’re here because they won their region, so they’ve got to have something to bring to the table… But the opportunity is definitely there to pull off some upsets.”
Mullett said he is hoping the Strikers’ success this year will attract more talent next season and inspire younger players in the association so that the club can build for future years.
“As much as success is nice, the longevity of the sport and the club being successful is (what counts),” Mullett said, noting CBS Soccer is celebrating 50 years as an organization this year, something he attributes to the hard work of all the volunteers over the years. “CBS is on the brink now of making the next 50 years even better. Look at the indoor facility they’re building now in Kelligrews. That’s going to be amazing for this area. And all of that exposure (at the nationals) is just going to bring out more quality people and hopefully bigger sponsorship opportunities, because the whole idea is to try to keep the game affordable.”