AT the Mariners, they’re quite used to reading the headlines of this week — club under pressure, poor crowds, speculation over its future. Their only surprise is that for once it wasn’t about them.

The furore over the future of Wellington has been the focus, with more than one commentator questioning why a club like Phoenix is under threat when others “like the Mariners” apparently need sorting first.

Yet on the day Sydney FC visit Gosford, one of the Central Coast’s biggest home games of the season, it’s an interesting time to put the spotlight on the home side.

Quietly, some important things have been underway on the Central Coast for some time. On the field, their almost kamikaze commitment to attack under Tony Walmsley has made them the best side to watch — or strictly speaking, theirs are the best games to watch, so bonkers is the imbalance between defence and attack at times.

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The average age of Saturday’s likely starting XI is only 23, and old hands believe such abandon is unsustainable. Yet the club’s vice-chairman Peter Storrie — the former EPL managing director brought in to restructure the Mariners by owner Mike Charlesworth — insists there is absolutely no time limit on it. No matter how many losses, the only thing that matters is the commitment to entertain, to give the people of Gosford a reason to watch the games.

media_camera Mariners coach Tony Walmsley Skypes fans before a match.

Off the field, in the club’s offices, things are rather more cautious and structured. According to Storrie, the club’s longstanding superannuation debts to players and staff have been cleared. Likewise debts to local businesses, with relationships mended along the way.

To say the club’s finances are strictly controlled would be to understate the case considerably. Storrie says the club budgets for what comes in and therefore what goes out. When a pre-season friendly with Sydney was switched from Gosford to Leichhardt, the first team almost couldn’t travel — as the game was a last-minute switch, there was no budget for a coach. Or rather, the money existed but it hadn’t been signed off.

In the end, a phone call to Storrie in London procured the green light to hire the necessary coach, but the point is that budgets are now set and kept to — all to the extent that Storrie insists the club is on track to break even within a year.

Some things, though, don’t cost much money but are the right thing to do. Appointed in May, CEO Shaun Mielekamp’s brief has been to re-engage the community and he has an old-school feel for what’s important. For the first time today a corporate box will be given over to the club’s former players.

media_camera Coach Tony Walmsley has been at the centre of the rebuilding process.

The plan is that there will be plenty for them to watch. Storrie is adamant that there will be no stepping back from the mantra to attack and to entertain. It puts Walmsley in possibly a unique, results-proof position in world football, though there are some who can’t believe it will last.

Among those evidently has been goalkeeper Liam Reddy, in the midst of a club suspension for a variety of alleged offences — including, it’s claimed, disparaging the new philosophy, inside and outside the club. The players union says Reddy has been made a scapegoat for daring to challenge the new orthodoxy.

Certainly he wasn’t the only player dismayed by the facilities at a pre-season camp in Port Stephens, but Reddy was the one to post a photo on Instagram. The club’s view is that he has disrupted attempts to set a new direction; eventually it’s hard to see any outcome other than an agreed settlement for Reddy to leave.

It seems evident that other players don’t figure in Walmsley’s plans — and in footballing terms it’s not exactly unprecedented for players to become surplus to requirements. The test for the club is how that process is managed, and the manner which players with contracts are treated.

But that’s not an issue for this afternoon, when Sydney FC come to town, promising a slugfest of attacking football. It’s early days of a new dawn in Gosford, but it’s a lot of fun to watch this experiment unfold.