1 Frank D'addario

Frank D’Addario “My passion, love and enthusiasm for football started when I was a little boy and I was asked to be a ball boy whilst accompanying my father to the very first National Soccer League (NSL) games at Manuka Oval in 1976/7 and then to Bruce Stadium in 1978 to watch the likes of victor Fernandez (senior), Tony Henderson, Harry Williams and manager Johnny Warren. Little did I know and little did my father Gianni D’Addario know that years later these people would be communicating together for the best interests of developing football for the ACT in a way that managed to sink deeply into my bones. I was not to know that from having a fanatical football father and knowing so many great coaches that became my idols, that for me to be one of the best football players I would need to listen and work very hard at my game everyday and that meant place my clothes on a chair before match day and polish my boots because these coaches checked my progress and if I wasn’t doing the little things then I wasn’t doing my best and ticking all the boxes. My real football career and taste of the NSL came about at 15 years of age when I was asked to go and train at Bruce stadium and play for the Canberra Arrows Youth team after being selected and playing in nearly every age of ACT School Sport and all National tournaments from u13 to u16. In 1982 George Kulscar (AIS, ex Socceroo) and myself represented ACT at the National titles for both the u15 and u16 age group in the same year. It was an inspiring time of my life back in 1982, to be training nearly every day with ACT representative training or with the ACT Academy of Soccer on a field either at the AIS or Bruce Stadium next to Don Maclaren (father of Jamie Maclaren), Tony Henderson, Alan Reis, Frank Farina, John, Robert and Michael O’shea, Attila Abonyi and Victor Fernandez and Johnny Warren, all Canberra City legends and I caught up with most of them at St George Budapest in 1986 after Frank Arok – ex Australian Socceroos coach knocked on my door asking me to come to Sydney to play for St George Budapest at 19 years of age, but that’s another story. In 1985 I signed a two year contract to play along side some great Inter-Monaro talent and many of which were ex-Canberra City players but I will never forget training and playing as a striker with Inter-Monaro in the NSL with the likes of Sebastian Giampaolo, Walter Valeri, Tony Brennan and Marko Perinovic. So it is perfect timing to return as a coach to a club that helped provide me with my first National Soccer League debut. In the NSL I managed to get 2 caps in 1985 and 16 appearances in 1986 (Graham Arnold was top goal scorer that year with 14 goals) and an interview with George Donekian post APIA Leichhardt for a goal I scored after coming on as a substitute. There are valid reasons why I did not get straight into coaching after I was robbed of a professional football career but again that is for another story. My father coached me until I was 15 years of age and whilst he drove players all over Canberra and was President of Belconnen for a number of years, he and Les Bee (my FFA/AFC C-Licence Mentor) started the first ACTSF affiliated and approved academy called the ACTSF Academy Of Soccer in Canberra. The ACTSF Academy of Soccer was a huge success. This achievement was later recognised in 2012 by Capital Football when my father received an Award of Distinction for being the brains behind the idea to better develop a pool of talented players including all ACT representative players in Canberra. So football both playing and coaching has been imbedded in my family and not just my bones. I have four children, two of which continued with their football and have represented ACT at Nationals level for both outdoor football and futsal and I feel my passion of football and one to one coaching has helped my son and daughter to develop positive healthy attitudes both on the pitch and off the pitch whilst making many friends along the way. Growing up with the intensity of my father and observing the many phone calls and meetings that he attended and all the politics, I decided to focus on my own children, selfishly but protectively one would say and develop their football directly with little distractions. I have achieved all but one goal as a footballer and that was to play for Australia, however injuries got the better of me and I had to stop playing football. It is time for me to coach individually, with groups and teams and inspire other players to be the best they can be and start sharing my philosophy of football that stems from a lifetime of being around the best football pioneers in Canberra let alone Australia. I intend to reach out to all my football contacts around Australia and globally to enhance my coaching ability and knowledge and to help provide me with the vision and philosophy I need to be part of a very holistic and exciting culture that I 1 feel is only positive for Monaro Panthers FC and the group of u23 NPL1 players that I was approached by the club to be directly involved with and for the love of Football for 2020. I hope to improve the players we currently have and bring a very passionate and positive coaching style that incorporates a similar philosophy as Jimmy and Colin with relation to “attractive possession based attacking football”. I would also like to be creative in attack with the ball and creative in defence without the ball by engaging in immediate pressure during transition and being very well prepared to know when to play a pro-active playing style immediately when we get the ball back. I will need to accept and reward players that try or attempt to play such an attacking but attractive style of football because the passing of the ball has to be executed with conviction and spot on. If we cannot penetrate with individual quality or creative combination play then we need to understand that we must maintain possession until we can and not become impatient. In the final third players need to be encouraged as often as possible to be creative enough to break down defences with no fear along with plenty of movement whilst we are in possession with the ball. I intend to encourage players to keep trying and never give up but the players as a team need to understand that the more boxes they all tick then the more they will be composed, confident, and ready to perform both individually and collectively at training and on match day. However until we get there we may need to start off slow and slowly improve the intensity once we increase our fitness, confidence and understanding because football is a team effort and we all need to be on the same page and very well organised and extremely well conditioned, if we want to get the same results or do better than last year” Frank D’Addario 1 .

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