Blog With Dead Set Legends
Thompson Leaves Cats Post by: Dan The Internut 4 October, 2010 - 2:22 PM
(Photo: The Slattery Media Group)
Mark Thompson has confirmed what many suspected by officially handing in his resignation as Geelong’s coach on Monday afternoon.
Thompson alerted key club powerbrokers last week that he felt ‘burnt out’ and needed time to evaluate his coaching future.
Less than a week later, the once mighty Cats have lost one of their greatest ever players in Gary Ablett to the Gold Coast Suns and now their two-time premiership coach.
Thompson has been linked with a senior assistant role at the Bombers under their newly appointed coach James Hird who was an Essendon premiership team-mate of the former Cats mentor.
After a glittering playing career that yielded three premierships and 202 matches at Essendon, Thompson became Geelong’s coach in 2000.
He would go on to become the club’s second-longest serving coach (260 matches) and its second-most successful coach behind the great Reg Hickey in both instances.
Most importantly, he oversaw Geelong’s most successful period in more than half a century as he guided the Cats to two flags from three grand finals between 2007-2009.
Incredibly, Geelong lost 17 matches out of 100 in the past four seasons.
