Burnside Heights will have a new coach next season, with Cole Harvey standing down at the Essendon District Football League division 2 club.
The Bears announced last week that after three seasons, Harvey had decided his time at the club was up.
“Cole departs as the most successful senior men’s coach in our club’s history – a testament to his leadership, football knowledge, and commitment to driving high standards on and off the field,” the club said in a statement on social media.
Speaking to Star Weekly, Harvey said he walks away proud of his time at the club.
“Hopefully they can keep pushing and keep rebuilding,” he said. “We got a heap of games into the kids and made that investment into the kids.
“They won the club’s first senior premiership in the under-18s. When I first got there, they didn’t have under-18s..
“We’ve invested a fair bit of effort into the junior program. We’ve set a standard at senior level and these younger guys all aspire to play senior football.
“This year wasn’t a loss, it was quite a fruitful year.”
Harvey admits this season was tough, much of it things out of his control.
The club was last season penalised for salary cap breaches in the off season, limiting what they could do with the playing list.
It came after the Bears made a preliminary final last year before being hit with injuries at the wrong time.
“It was a tough year,” Harvey said. “It was a direct result of the fine and the points reduction and we had players leave and we weren’t in a position to recruit.
“We had a tough run with injuries and we didn’t have any depth. It made it difficult but we were still able to come away with five wins.”
Harvey said those outside the walls of the club didn’t understand how difficult it had been this season.
“We couldn’t do what we wanted to do,” he said. “It didn’t work out but they will be OK and we’ve set them up with the younger players coming through.
“A fair few have already re-signed.”
Harvey, who has already committed to coaching the Western Jets under-16s, said he was keen to continue to coach senior football again in the future.
He said he’ll see what comes up and see whether it suits him and aligns with what he’s after before deciding whether he coaches next year.
The Bears have since announced assistant coach Damian Gillman will step up into the senior coaching role.
