26 NOVEMBER 1998
THE PRESS
by Tony Smith
Former national league stalwart Mike Fullen has quit as player-coach of Canterbury premier league club Rangers, citing disillusionment with the domestic soccer stalemate in Christchurch.
Fullen, a centre-back in the Christchurch United team which won the national league and Chatham Cup double in 1992, said he had yet to decide if he will continue to play next year.
His decision has come as a bombshell to the club because Fullen, in his first year in charge, had guided Rangers to second place in the Canterbury league and to the South Island semi-final of the Chatham Cup.
But Fullen, 33, said yesterday he intended to devote more time to his young family and his french polishing business.
He said disillusionment "with the split league set-up" was a major factor in his decision to quit.
He was disappointed that the top teams in Christchurch were divided between the Canterbury league and the southern regional league.
"As a coach and as a player, you want to pit yourself against the best to gauge how you are performing and we weren't able to do that.
"There's a lot of time involved in coaching, and I've never done things in soccer by halves. You have to be fully committed and, with the way I am feeling about things, I wasn't able to make that commitment for next year."
Rangers, Christchurch United, and Halswell resigned from the southern league last year to join the inaugural Canterbury League. But Christchurch Technical and Woolston stayed in the southern league fold.
Fullen said he had some sympathy for the concepts promoted by Canterbury Soccer, particularly the push for more inter-provincial football, but he feared "soccer will suffer" if the best teams in Christchurch continued to be split. He said it had been difficult to assemble a team in the pre-season, with all the uncertainty over the separate competitions. But he was pleased with the way his side had developed and said he had enjoyed the challenge of being a player-coach.