Geelong Soccer Club stalwart points club in right direction

Friday, 14 May 2010 09:45

An article from this week's Geelong adi by Bradley Green, May 14th, 2010

NO ONE can ever question Lu Temelkovski's loyalty to the Geelong Soccer Club.

The club stalwart has been juggling the coaching duties of the club's seniors and reserves teams ever since its head coach Vata Matanu Garcia informed the club he had to return to Angola for family reasons two games into the season.

Vata, who played 65 times for Angola, has not given the club any indication when he will return. But his absence has not disrupted Geelong's Provisional League 2 campaign with the team currently sitting on top of the ladder ahead of tonight's game against Latrobe Uni under lights at Stead Park.

Temelkovski said he had no hesitation in accepting the caretaker senior coaching position when approached by president Will Talev.

"It's all about helping the club," he said before training last night.

"The chemistry this year is absolutely fantastic. Not only do we have good players but they are quality people as well and I think it comes from the direction that the club is going as well. We had quality people come back this year and they don't do that if things aren't going well."

The club has been a constant in Temelkovski's life as well as that of his father Tome, who passed away more than a decade ago.

"It's a community club," he said.

"This is just about me helping out the club and generating some good times."

Geelong narrowly avoided relegation last year but Temelkovski is making sure his players don't get too carried away by their ladder position just yet.

"You can get ahead of yourself if you've got August or September on your mind, but we don't think like that," he said.

"I say to the boys, if we get a result to savour the win and tell everyone how well we're playing but come Tuesday night the centre of attention is on next week's opposition.

"If there are happy days at the end of the year, then that's fantastic. That's why we play the game, but you can lose all of that if we get ahead of ourselves."