Lindon, who captained the Bears to their 2018 triumph, will take over the reins as senior coach, while Campbell will return as an assistant coach after spending four seasons in the top job from 2014 to 2017.
President Mark Washington said the club could not be more thrilled to add two of its legends to its coaching panel in 2022.
“They are really good gets and come with a lot of experience that will really complement our mix of senior players and youth coming through on our list,” Washington said.
“We are very excited to have these two guys back at the club — Ted is a premiership captain from 2018, Brad was the senior coach for a number of years and they are both heavily invested in the club and will both be fantastic for our entire group of players through both the senior and junior ranks.”
Along with the coaching changes, the club has also been active in keeping its group of talented young players together — announcing a plethora of re-signings since the conclusion of the season.
Highlighted by the return of the ubertalented Tyler Larkin, Washington said it was fantastic to see so much up and coming talent commit to the club.
“The playing list is definitely building, we have re-signed some of our family favourites in Mitch Brett, Anthony Andronaco, Ryley Yenco and some of our kids coming through as well with Connor Fleming, who is an up and coming star as well as a quality person,” he said.
“Tyler Larkin is a former Shepp thirds player and really is just a renowned sportsman across the board and brings another lot of youthfulness and passion to our squad — while Bryce Stephenson who came to the club last year from Ballarat is someone that brings a lot of experience that we are thrilled to re-sign.”
Despite their work throughout the off-season to date, Washington didn’t want to to see the club get too far ahead of itself as it continues to develop its youth and rebuild its game plan.
“Like anything in life we just want to keep improving and I thought we were very competitive at times this year with results probably not reflecting that at senior level,” he said.
“We aren’t looking to finish right up the top, but to hit the finals next season would be a goal of ours — we are really mindful not to totally overhaul our playing list, there has been great commitment from both senior and junior players, so we aren’t going to turn this thing on its head straight away.
“It is not going to be a grand reunion of the good old days, we just want to see gradual improvement and take those steps to building a successful team with our current crop.”
Away from football, the club recently made the decision to cancel its presentation night and not award a best-and fairest for the 2021 season in any grades of football and netball.
Washington explained why the club came to this conclusion.
“That wasn’t an easy decision, we discussed it at committee level and the fact that we had only played 11 rounds we thought the season was well and truly compromised with disruption — so we thought it probably wasn’t a fair way to go to announce a best-and-fairest,” he said.
“There are also a number of other committee issues that go with trying to organise such a function online, so there were quite a lot of points that came into consideration and it was a majority call in the end.”
As the club looks ahead to season 2022, he said re-establishing that social connection among its members was of extreme importance.
“Getting back to some sort of normality and bringing some consistency back to the club is what excites me most about next season,” Washington said.
“Seeing our club become reacquainted socially is really important to me having missed out on things such as a mid-season ball and grand final luncheon, so it is exciting to think that we can have a season which is close to normal.”
