Sim Excited for Next Steps in Professional Manly United Environment

One of the National Premier Leagues NSW’s most experienced and competitive players, 33-year-old Matt Sim, has made the move back to Manly United after nine years away from the club.

Having played for A-League outfits Central Coast Mariners and Western Sydney Wanderers, along with an impactful five years with Sydney United 58, Sim made the tough decision to move back to Manly United for personal reasons, leaving with nothing but praise for his former club.

“So I obviously spent five years with Sydney United and an opportunity came up for me away from playing,” he explained.

“It was just a good opportunity for me to take in the direction that I’m going in my coaching life, so once I committed to that unfortunately the logistics of it weren’t to work around being able to play at Sydney United anymore.

“That’s when I spoke to Manly and they were happy to have me back and it worked out in the end that I fitted into somewhere where I’ve been before.

“If there was any way that I could have made it work, I would have for sure.

“I spent five great years, played obviously in some pretty big moments for the Club as well, which was amazing to be a part of and left on good terms.

“A little bit of a sour thing to it was probably that I didn’t really get to give the club the send off they deserved for the way they treated me because we obviously had a COVID season last year and the season got cut short and I didn’t get to sort of say goodbye to a lot of people face to face, which would have been nice, but I’m sure I’ll get the opportunity in the future to catch up with everyone again.”

While the departure from Sydney United 58 was a tough one, Sim is now excited to start the next chapter of his journey back at Manly United and praised the way the club has developed since he last played there.

“When I had a chat to them and they were keen to have me back, it was interesting to hear where the club is out at the moment and how far they’ve come,” he said.

“They were doing very well last year before the season came to an end and that was part of the reason why I decided to go back there as well.

“They’ve got a very competitive squad full of a lot of young players coming through but there’s also some very experienced players as well that know this level and know how to win.

“They’ve got a coach who’s played at the highest level as well, so everything around the club in terms of the setup that they’ve got there, the culture that they’ve got there was what I was looking for and I think it’s going to be a good fit.”

Off the pitch the club has made leaps and bounds to try to mirror a professional team environment, and having already been in these environments in the past Sim was very impressed with the facilities and support available.

“The setup that they’ve got there now, especially with the new clubhouse and the new physio and medical rooms, is what you’d mirror at a lot of professional clubs,” he explained.

“Credit to the club to Dave Mason and Steve Felsher as well, the head of the medical side of things, and [Adam] Griffiths the first team coach for pushing these things across the line and getting it there because it makes a massive difference, especially for for taking care of obviously older players like me and keeping us as soon as fit to be on the pitch, but also the flip side is for young players to sort of understand what they need to do day in day out to hopefully reach their goals for whatever level they they aspire to get to.

“The pitch is getting re-laid which is going to add a little bit of a buzz around the place, although we’ve obviously got to play away for the first four or five games but that’s something we’ll just have to deal with.

“Once it’s done, it’ll definitely be a place that we’re looking forward to playing at and hopefully we can do really well at home this season.”

-By Madeline Riley