Rick Austen runs his own property maintenance business whilst maintaining his passion for football as a coach and player. This year he led the South Lismore Celtics FC to a premiership win in a grand final against Richmond Rovers FC. He shared some of this journey with Sara Browne.

I grew up in Lismore, I just moved to Lennox a couple of months ago for my business, all my work is in Ballina and Lennox. I went to school in Lismore – Goonellabah Public and then Kadina High. My parents still live in Goonellabah. Sport was always a part of my childhood. I’ve played soccer since I was seven.

I played for Goonellabah as a junior and then started my seniors there. I played for Italo Stars for a little while. I played a year for Workers and then ended up at Souths. I played lower grades because I ruptured my ACL a little while ago so I played one season with Souths and then started coaching there.

I didn’t know what I wanted to do as I was growing up but I was always into soccer mainly and many different sports. I coached junior sides when I was about 17 or 18 and then progressed. I coached Italo Stars for two seasons in the premier league then I joined the Liverpool Football Academy. I coached there for four years and then took on the prem division coaching at Souths, last year and this year.

Coaching is a way of keeping involved. When I ruptured my ACL I couldn’t play for a bit so I coached instead to keep connected to football.

When I joined the Liverpool Academy, we did training two nights a week for nine weeks and then Saturdays and Sundays. They virtually taught us their curriculum and how they coach in England and how their academies operate. There is a bit involved. And a lot of time, especially coaching a premier division side because you train twice a week, keeping up with the other teams.

It is fairly competitive, especially in the premier division. A coach’s job entails a lot. You have to make sure players come to training and you’ve got to have your sessions all planned out each week. You’re nearly a school teacher for the younger generation, you guide them a lot. The boys I coached this season were really good, they were a really committed bunch.

I think a good coach is more a motivator than a mate. But if you can get along with your players, they’ll perform the best for you. Pretty much all the blokes I coach, I rate them all as close mates. If you can be like that, it’s a better environment to be in. If I have to tell them off for something, it’s part and parcel, they all know if it’s right or wrong.

I think the reason we are successful is because everything we do at training we make very competitive. It’s like a competition. If you win, you’re a winner if you lose, you get punished in some way and it brings out the best in the players. I know that’s what we’ve done and that’s why we’ve been a bit more successful.

Premier division semi-final against Alstonville FC

The boys this year were not playing or training at home. It brought them a lot closer together. We did it pretty tough really. We started off training at Goonellabah. I asked them if we could use half a field there because we had no facilities. We didn’t even have balls or anything. So, we borrowed some equipment for about a month and the club got use of Clifford Park which is the Northern United Rugby League field. It was terrible to train on.

We snuck up and started training on Hepburn Park in Goonellabah. I was trying to get the club to get us a code for the lights which took them a month and half so we were training in half-dark for a bit. Then we finally got a code and that’s where we trained for the rest of the year.

The players live all over the area. There was a few that didn’t play this year because they were displaced and rebuilding. A few of them had family there in South Lismore. They’re all still part of that community.

The council are redoing the club which I think is supposed to be finished by the end of this year so hopefully, we can get back there next season. I won’t be back to coach next season. Having the business now and living in Lennox, there’s too much travel and I won’t have enough time to dedicate to them. I told all the boys about it, they took it fine, I think. Hopefully, the club can get somebody to replace me.

I’ll definitely miss it. It’s been part of my life since I was seven. I play in the lower grades and fill in for teams when I’m available or not coaching. I had to play a couple of games in the premier division this year to fill in because we didn’t have the numbers. We virtually lost the championship side because of the floods so we didn’t have a team to back us up. Usually, we have prems and champs. We ended up with 15 players registered in the premier division where other teams had 28 players to choose from.

Souths clubhouse building in flood cleanup mode

We started training two weeks before the competition started because we didn’t have anything or anywhere to go. We were told by Football Far North Coast just to play championship. I talked to the boys about it at the first training session and we thought, no we’ll play prems and have a go and see what happens. I was thinking then maybe we’d make the top 5, hopefully. When it came to the semi-final and I knew how we were playing and we were full strength, I thought we had a really good chance.

It's hard to say what support we’ve had this year from locals because we haven’t been over there very much. We usually have gatherings and functions throughout the year. The boys have fun nights at the club. We haven’t been able to do any of that because of the flood and so forth. On the day of the final, there were a lot of people at Rovers field. I’ve never seen so many people there which is great. They supported the boys well.

These boys are probably football addicts. They socialise between seasons, they’re a close group of mates. There’s a few who play different sports like golf.

Eventually, I’d like to travel. I want to build my business up a bit first. I’d like to have enough work to employ a couple of extra people. I still want to play football in some way – I don’t know where or for who. I might play for a Lismore team, depends if I have mates there. Because I’ve played for a long time, I’ve made a lot of friends playing football. It’s good to know the people that you play with.

I’m not 100% sure but I think there is probably a lot of people, especially over south way, who didn’t play any sport this season. Hopefully, once everything is starting to rebuild, they get back into it. It’s good for your mental health as well as socialising and so forth.

I’d probably play golf when I get too old for football. I play golf a little bit. Other than that, I’m not sure what I’d do other than football.