Football: Michael Built to lead Wanderers

Michael Built will co-coach Hamilton Wanderers premier league team next year while overseeing football operations at the club. Photo / Grant Stantiall

Hamilton Wanderers have announced Michael Built as its new football operations manager after keeping the club in the premier league last season.

Built has played for Wanderers since 2007. He has also featured for several English clubs including Northampton Town.

At international level he has played for New Zealand at the Fifa Under 17 World Cup in Nigeria and the Under 20 team in the Sanix Cup in Japan.

Built is looking to build on the club's existing coaching structure.

"It is important that Wanderers continues to attract new skilled coaches to the club and for us to upskill our existing coaches through coach education and development programmes," Built said.

Built will also be co-coaching the premier league team again with an expectation that another high-level coach will join him.

"I expect the club will announce in the near future the arrival of another high level coach with an UEFA Pro Licence. This is the same qualification that Ricki Herbert - Hamilton Wanderers' summer league's coach - and high-profile European coaches have."

Last year Built coached the Wanderers National Youth League team and they became the first team from the Waikato and Bay of Plenty region to win a National League title.

Built holds a UEFA B coaching licence and is currently working towards his A Licence.

He wants to work with New Zealand Football and WaiBop to establish a skills centre at Hamilton Wanderers.

Sam Wilkinson and Michael Mayne head coaches at Melville United have started a similar youth academy in Hamilton.

Built wants to make developing and retaining their top players a priority at the club.

"Wanderers cannot out spend larger clubs so we need to develop players from within and then provide an environment which allows us to retain them right the way through to National League level. Already we are seeing some evidence of this with several reserve players graduating to the senior winter team and three or four younger players now in Ricki's national league squad."

Club chairman, Brendon Coker said that these are exciting times for the club.

"We continue to build on our club infrastructure to ensure Wanderers remains one of New Zealand's elite clubs. A further announcement regarding the second coaching position will come soon," Coker said.