Melbourne Knights have announced Ben Surey as coach ahead of the 2024 National Premier League season.
Surey replaces Ben Cahn who has moved north to take on the role of youth technical director at A-League side Brisbane Roar.
Surey played for the Knights for nine seasons before serving as the club’s under 20’s coach, as well as being caretaker coach on two occasions.
Now as coach, Surey is looking forward to the next challenge.
“It’s been a busy week or two, but I’m definitely looking forward to getting started again,” he said.
“The boys are excited and I am as well.
“I’ve been there a long time, I’ve probably done every other role at the club.
“I know the club, I know what it means to people, what a hub it is to the community.”
The club enjoyed one of its more successful seasons in recent times, finishing fourth in NPL, and making the semi finals of all three competitions, including the Australia Cup in front of over 5000 Knights fans.
“Last year things went quite well, without winning anything we did make massive strides,” Surey said.
“We had an exciting season and I think it’s definitely a good time to have a crack and see if we can go one better.”
“We built some momentum at the end of the season, and maybe got some people back in the crowd and back in the stands that hadn’t been around for a while.
“It just shows what the club could be and how big the club is and how exciting it could be if we could sustain some success.”
Sustaining success is what Surey’s goal is for his first season at the helm.
“We certainly don’t want to go backwards… we’re definitely looking to improve,” he said.
“We’re in it to win it and we want to get some silverware for sure.
“We want to build on that and we’ve got a good base, hopefully we retain most of the squad and all of the boys that we want to keep, which is a working progress at the moment, as well as adding a bit more quality as well.
“There will be a few changes which are either out of our control or out of choice, in areas we think we can improve.
“There are not many players that we want to move on or lose, it’s just about adding the quality that we need.
“We’re working on it now, we’re definitely looking to act fast but we have time and we’d rather wait for the right players.”
Harper Sercombe
