Mark Milligan is just seven games into his senior managerial career, but his early success with the Newcastle Jets is coming as little surprise. Milligan first left Australia as a player aged 23; his career took him through Asia, the UK and to four World Cups, acquiring a diverse, in-depth education in the game.
He did the bulk of it with one eye towards this stage of his career. After retiring in 2022 he spent three full seasons as an assistant, with Adelaide United and then fleetingly the Malaysian national team. But his interest in management dates back much further, to around the time he landed in China with Shanghai Shenhua in 2009.
‘It was something I took to quite early. When I first was in China, and then over to Japan I had a Dutch coach, Dwight Lodeweges, over there and I was honestly fascinated by him. He was just a fantastic person – we had a really good relationship’, Milligan told Box2Box.
‘At one point I dealt with a groin injury, so had a little bit of time on the sidelines. Whilst he could obviously see that I was struggling with not being able to play… he brought me in on the backroom stuff, the goings-on of a football club. He was very, very thorough in what he did and being in Japan, work ethic and information are a big part of their football, so he fitted in very well there. That was when my interest in the other side of the game really sparked.
‘About eighteen months after that, Ange Postecoglou brought me back to Melbourne Victory. He was different to Dwight, but he changed me as a footballer; the things he wanted us to do, he had to give to me as a player [to do]. He backed me, and a lot of players in that team, to learn and get better at what we did in order to play the brand of football we wanted.’
Milligan arrived at the success-starved Jets – a club he knows well after a six-month stint early in his playing career – in May and has promptly won the Australia Cup. It was just the club’s second piece of silverware and first since 2008, quite the drought by A-League standards.
They then lost their Round 1 meeting with rivals Central Coast, somewhat surprisingly, in a chaotic final stanza, but quickly re-aligned to thump the Victory 5-2 on Friday night, headlined by 20-year old Alex Badolato’s hattrick.
The winning goals on Cup final night came from Oskar Fryer (19 years old) and Ben Gibson (22), while Will Dobson (17) has impressed on the right wing. It could be misconstrued that Milligan has been forced to play the kids given the league’s present era of austerity, but it’s not the case.
‘A big belief of mine, not just for the Jets but for Australian football, is that if we’re able to take the time with the young ones and give them the tools to become better, they generally don’t let you down. I think we’re far too quick here to say ‘that player doesn’t fit’, or ‘he’s not capable.’
‘I was fortunate that when I was a player, I was given the opportunity to become a better player. I was given the opportunity, given the tools, that would help me become a better player and then ultimately bring the football that, at the time, the gaffer wanted.
‘So it was very, very important to me that we did go down this path. It’s full credit to the owners as well because it’s easy to say ‘yes, that’s the direction we want to go down’; it’s another to stand by it and continue it. There’s going to be tough times when we’ll have to double down. After the Mariners game was one of those times.’
Badolato’s progression has been marked, already. Recently the winner of the AFC’s Youth Footballer of the Year after leading Australia to a seismic win at the U20 Asian Cup in January, he was simultaneously not featuring for Western Sydney last season, and then played a bit-part role on loan at Victory.
Milligan wanted him and in turn, Badolato has shown faith in his new manager and club that this is where he can take the next step. Four goals in two league games has been a great start; indeed, the pairing of a former Socceroos captain and the next big thing – both primarily midfielders – is hugely exciting for Australian football romantics.
‘I’ve known Alex for a long time, since he was quite young, and I know his parents as well. So there was already a connection there in terms of having an understanding of who Alex was as a person. I knew, as soon as I got the Jets job, that he would be a player that would fit and help promote the football that I wanted us to play.
‘In many ways it hasn’t been the easiest twelve months for him. He put all that aside and went and did fantastically well in the Asian Cup and got his reward as the Young Asian Player of the Year.
‘But, one of the discussions we had was that he needed to come in and improve himself as well… no one that I speak to do I guarantee game time, they have to come in and earn it. He’s not alone in that sense, even the young boys from our academy who are having the first bite of the cherry, training with us early doors, have been outstanding.’
Newcastle have an opportunity to back up Friday’s intoxicating performance with another home showing this Saturday against Sydney FC. It’s rare the Jets enter this fixture in better form than the Sky Blues, who under Ufuk Talay are grinding away under weight of unfulfilled expectation.
Empty seats at McDonald Jones Stadium have become the norm over the past decade or so, save for their blissful run to the 2018 Grand Final, where the heaving stands of passionate local support remain a memory of what football in the region can be.
After years of unstable ownership, from Nathan Tinkler to Martin Lee, to Covid-19 when they were propped up by other A-League clubs, they finally appear sturdy hands of after last year’s takeover by Maverick Sports Partners. 2017/18 was a rare period where stable ownership and a strong on-field unit were in harmony, and the fans came flooding back.
‘From the very first contact with Maverick Sports Partners, they’ve been extremely honest in the vision they’ve had for the club. They’ve worked extremely hard behind the scenes in terms of the ownership group as well to get people that understand and are from Newcastle involved from board level all the way down to our junior academies.
‘I was fortunate to be at Adelaide, where it took some time to get to the point they’re at with local players coming through. But it’s well worth your while; when you start to bring players in from outside Newcastle, because of the love of the game in the Hunter that the local players have, it becomes infectious.
‘So for boys that come in, from day one, it’s not me telling them, it’s not the ownership group telling them. It’s from the players that sit in the change room next to them, telling them what it means to play for the Newcastle Jets.’