Tara Murray
PEGS has turned to a couple of Andrews to lead it into next year’s Victorian Amateur Football Association premier C competition.
The club announced last week that Andrew Horne and Andrew Beever would be co-coaches, replacing premiership winning coach Len Hannah who stood down from the role.
Horne, who won division 1 best and fairest this year along with the club best and fairest, said it was pretty exciting to step up into the head coaching role.
He was a playing assistant coach this season.
“It’s a bit of a step up, but it’s exciting,” he said.
“The aim to coach was there when I came across. I had spent most of my senior career at Strathmore, but I came across as an assistant [at the end of] last year.
“With Len stepping down, [president] Damien [Cerantonio] mentioned to myself about coaching and it went from there.”
Beever joins the club and brings with him an impressive playing and coaching resume.
He was an assistant coach at several clubs including at Essendon Doutta Stars in the Essendon District Football League and Northcote Park in the Northern Football League.
Horne said with him still playing it was the perfect situation to have a co-coach.
“We met through a mutual friend,” he said. “I wanted to keep playing footy, so I didn’t want to be a sole coach.
“Beevs was an off ground coach for Kyle Hardingham at Doutta Stars and coached at Northcote Park and Airport West.
“Game day I’ll focus on playing and majority of the time hand all the coaching to Beevs.”
The pair take charge of a side that went through the division 1 season undefeated, to earn promotion into premier C.
Horne said despite taking on coaching a team that had so much success, he doesn’t see that as adding any further pressure.
“I’m very proud to take over at PEGS and Damien has put faith in myself and Beevs,” he said.
“We’ll take over and put our spin on a little bit. I’m really proud of what the group did to get it done in the grand final.
“It was amazing, but I don’t find the pressure to be more, just a bit more of a workload.”
Horne said the majority of the playing group had already committed for next season. He said they will lose a couple of older players who have stepped back due to work and family commitments.
“The list is really exciting,” he said. “Ninety-five per cent are staying on.
“We might look to add one of two to the group.”
