SHINTY – Jodi Gorski steps down as manager of Caberfeidh after leading club to best ever finish in the Premiership
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JODI Gorski has stepped down as manager of Caberfeidh after leading the club to their best ever finish in the Premiership.
He finished his near seven-year stint in charge of the Strathpeffer club with a 1–0 victory over Lovat at Castle Leod on Saturday.
The victory means Caberfeidh are in fifth and can’t finish any lower than sixth, which will be their highest ever finish in the top flight.
Gorski (39) will remain at the club as an under-17 coach, but Cabers are now looking for a new boss for the senior team.
Gorski led Caberfeidh to the Premiership after winning promotion from the National Division in 2017 and have remained in the top flight ever since.
Under his reign, Caberfeidh reached the MacTavish Cup final in June and the Camanachd Cup semi final in 2019.
Gorski says establishing Caberfeidh as a Premiership team is his proudest achievement.
“Getting to the Premiership is something that we never thought of doing,” admitted Gorski.
“We thought we might win the Balliemore Cup or reach a semi final of one of the major competitions.
“But getting to the Premiership was something which never crossed our mind.
“However, we did and we have been good enough to stay in it every year.
“During our time, we have managed to finish higher than the previous year."
“We have reached every target we set ourselves."
Gorski decided during the summer it would be his final season in charge.
He said: “At the start of the year, I decided it would be this year or next year I would stand down.
“In July I told them of my decision to stand down, and then we started winning.
“It’s time for someone else to have a go and push them on to the next level and compete in the top half of the league.”
Gorski was pleased how his team finished the campaign to be in the top half of the table
“I am delighted with how things have ended as we have won our last seven games,” said Gorski.
“That is unheard of for us, we conceded 20 less goals in the league than we usually do, which is a fair chunk to cut off.
“We have put a lot of work into the defence and it is showing.
“We are still scoring the same amount of goals we usually do, which has made us second top goalscorers behind Kingussie.
"Our aim at the start of the season was 16 points, which we thought would be good enough to get us into the top-six and get to a final.
"We finished with 19 points, we will definitely finish in the top six and we got to the MacTavish Cup final.
"We ticked all the boxes for what we aimed for at the start of the season."
Gorski will help bring on the new generation of shinty stars at Strathpeffer by becoming the club's under-17 coach.
He says since Caberfeidh have been in the Premiership, the number of players taking up the sport, as well as the support in the community, has grown.
"We are getting bigger crowds to watch us, which means more money coming in for the club which is good," he said.
"Grown-ups take their kids down to matches and it results in more kids coming to training.
"Sometimes we have up to 40 kids in training which is good for the sport as well as the club.
"We have a lot of talented junior which I am looking forward to working with as under-17 coach after Christmas.
"Hopefully we can push them on into the second team and challenging the boys in the first team for their positions."
