Ernie Merrick
Ernie Merrick is the current head coach for the Australian A-League football (soccer) team, Melbourne Victory. He is the highest qualified coach in Australia with a UEFA Pro licence. Has coached at the VIS for the past 13 years and has made the step up to coach senior football in the A-League with Melbourne Victory. His previous senior coaching experience was at Sunshine George Cross in the 1991 NSL season where his side were relegated, despite the team boasting several star Australian players of the time including Kevin Muscat, Damian Mori and Craig Foster. He was sacked as coach after relegation, and was then appointed at the VIS, who sponsored his UEFA coaching licence.
Season 2005/2006
In his first season at Melbourne Victory, the club failed to live up to its championship aspirations. With Socceroos Archie Thompson and Kevin Muscat in the squad, and the experience of 2 European internationals in Geoffrey Claeys and Richard Kitzbichler, expectations from the Melbourne fans were high. But they were left disappointed when the club finished the season 7th out of the 8 teams. After a promising start which saw them 1st after round 8, when they beat eventually champions Sydney FC 5-0, the team then won only 3 of the last 13 games. In this poor run of form, Melbourne endured a spell when they didn't score for 7 hours of football.
Indeed there was a vocal section of fans unhappy with the way Melbourne performed in the inaugural season under Merrick. Despite this supporter unrest the Melbourne Victory Chairman Geoff Lord has so far stuck by his manager, but another season of underachievment could leave the board with little choice but to look elsewhere.
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