Case closed
“I have signed with Heywood and that is where I am playing” – Mal Michael

22 January 2010

BY DEAN MILLARD

HEYWOOD Football Club senior coach Brad Sinclair would like to set the record straight; star recruit Mal Michael will be playing with the Lions in 2010.

Sinclair was speaking in response to two articles that have appeared in the Hamilton Spectator over the past month suggesting Michael was planning on backing out of his contract with Heywood and playing with another club, most recently Avondale Heights.

He said both he an Michael were both annoyed and frustrated that their word had been publicly doubted twice without either of them being contacted to confirm or deny the rumours.

“Apart from Mal’s football career he has the Mal Michael Foundation, he is based around integrity and if his integrity is questioned that can unload all sorts of problems not only for his footy but for his business and his real beliefs and work he is doing with Papua New Guinea so he is not about to do that.

“So much so that he has organised three ex AFL footballers that we are meeting with on Saturday that are likely to be coming west with him.

“Now I don’t think Mal would be doing that if he wasn’t playing here.

“The Avondale Heights thing, Mal spoke to Chris Johnson back in November when he was also speaking to me.

“He was talking to four different clubs and he made the decision of Heywood over those clubs and I feel that everyone concerned should be feeling so excited and positive about it and embracing it rather than be trying to find a negative spin.”

Michael backed up Sinclair’s statements, saying he had made his decision about where he was playing this season and he had no plans on changing it.

“I have signed with my club, Heywood, so they are now my club and that is where I am playing,” Michael said.

“I can only assume people are thinking I’m going to Avondale Heights because Chris Johnson is coaching there and I played with Chris, so I think people are just putting two and two together and adding it up to seven.

“I did speak to Chris, but I told him I was already committed to Heywood.

“He missed me by about three or four weeks.”

Sinclair said the media speculation could have stopped at one story had the correct research been carried out before going to print and set the minds of Heywood’s members, sponsors and supporters at rest about whether their prized recruit was actually planning on pulling on a Heywood uniform this year.

“Mal knows the system and he is aware of how it works, but he is used to using the Herald Sun or the Age for examples and they do their research and it won’t get across the editor’s desk until it has been fully researched by someone else who has done the work for the reporter and it just doesn’t come out or go to air unless it has been through that,” Sinclair said.

“My big belief is get it right and don’t try to be first.”

Sinclair said he felt it was important to make a clear statement to the community that nothing had changed in the relationship between Michael and the club as the rumours could affect prospective players’ decision making on whether or not to join the club.

“It very much impacts on momentum and recruiting, particularly with the local players.

“When that story first went in as a rumour, I didn’t see it because I was in Melbourne on holidays, but when the first one was written I had about eight phone calls from concerned members, committee members and a sponsor.

“We signed Mal and the whole idea was to get people on board.

“They read this in a newspaper and the sad thing is, and this is with all due respect to your publication, sadly they read it and think that is gospel, that is right.

“If the research is done I don’t have a problem with that and I have no problem talking to anyone about something and doing it right from the start, but now we have a lot of people wondering if Mal is on board, and I can only say that having been speaking to him after these two stories he has reiterated that he is signed, sealed and delivered, case closed as far as he is concerned.”

Sinclair said it was bewildering why some people seemed intent on hunting for a negative spin to the efforts taken by the Heywood club to improve its playing list because as far as he was concerned bringing a player of Michael’s calibre into the league would benefit every club in the league through the likely growth in attendances to games that would follow.

“Why you would want to go looking for a negative spin is beyond me because it is not only exciting for the Heywood footy club it is exciting for the district, it is huge.

“When they hear the other names we are speaking to, particularly one of them, it is going to blow them away again.

“We are all about not only doing something for the Heywood footy club but also the Western Border footy league and the district.

“It is going to bring people to games, it is going to affect Portland’s gates, Hamilton’s gates, the Mount Gambier gates, we are all winners out of it so I think we have just got to get rid of the losers.”