BY GENE SAPAKOFF
Of The Post and Courier Staff
A first-round exit in the A-League playoffs cost Alan Dicks his job. The Charleston Battery, Anthony Bakker's well-financed minor league soccer club, fired Dicks as head coach on Monday, two days after the Pittsburgh Riverhounds completed a two-game playoff sweep.
Pittsburgh defeated the Battery, 3-1, Saturday night at Blackbaud Stadium in decisive Game 2.
"We are very disappointed with the early playoff exit and have decided that it is time to move in another direction," Battery president Nigel Cooper said in an official statement. "Alan Dicks has done a tremendous job here over the last four years and we would like to thank him for his service. He will remain here at the club. His experience in the game and the contacts he maintains are extremely valuable."
A new head coach will be named at a later date, Cooper said.
Dicks will remain with the Battery in an "advisory role," at least through the 2002 season. The personable London native had one year remaining on a two-year contract signed last October.
Dicks' career in pro soccer, which spans more than 40 years, began in England where he spent 10 years as a player at Chelsea FC in the English Premier League before moving into coaching.
Dicks took over as Charleston's head coach midway through the 1998 season after having led the A-League's Carolina Dynamo to the playoff final the year before. He leaves with a 56-40-3 record.
In his first full season with Charleston in 1999 the Battery went 15-13. In 2000, the club finished 18-8-2. Charleston won the Atlantic Division Championship and had the best record in the Eastern Conference of the A-League but lost in the second round of the playoffs to Rochester. In the first round last year, the Battery advanced past the Raleigh Capital Express.
Under Dicks the Battery also lost in the first round of the playoffs in both 1998 and 1999.
The A-League is the closest step to Major League Soccer. Privately financed Blackbaud Stadium on Daniel Island is considered one of the finest soccer facilities in the nation.
