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A very warm welcome to all our returning members, and to the many new players and families who have chosen to join Souths for season 2008. This season we anticipate having over 800 players registered with our club. This will make us the largest club in Brisbane City, and the 2nd or 3rd largest club in the Football Brisbane region of some 72 or more clubs!
For the littlest members of the club, we will be adopting the new Football Federation Australia system of Small Sided Games, initially for Under 6 to Under 8 age groups. All Rooball players will benefit from a new coaching programme co-ordinated by our Premier Youth coach and Rooball Head Coach, Roy Wiseman. Our 22 or more junior divisional teams will continue to learn and grow as players under the club’s Junior Development Programme headed by our Junior Coaching Coordinator Russell Hicks. We’re delighted to welcome a new Vice President of our Womens division, Tony Buckley. Tony’s experience, enthusiasm and commitment to ladies football knows no bounds, and consequently we expect to have good growth in that division, hopefully including at least one junior girls team in 2008. Our Mens division goes from strength to strength. The Premier Mens teams will be joined by at least 2 Metro teams, possibly a 2nd Youth squad and/or an Under 21 team. To cater for this growth there has been plenty happening during the off season, some of which is not so obvious. The big job of course has been the re-construction of the playing surface on field 1. This new TiffSport couch field over a sand base was built with grant funding from the Queensland Government Department of Sport and Recreation and the Brisbane City Council. Our back fields are in tip top condition I’m sure you’ll agree. All 8 goalmouths have been re-turfed, and all fields have been cored, top dressed, and fertilized, and additional sprinkler lines have been installed around the perimeter of each field. By the time you read this we will have had 4 “dugouts” installed adjacent to the Rooball fields to make life more comfortable for the mums and dads. We’re also making good headway at last on the change sheds project between fields 1 and 2. A contract has been signed to commence construction of a block and concrete building that will include change rooms, toilets and a referee’s room, to a basic stage. Further development will occur as funds become available and as we receive assistance from members – all offers greatly appreciated! And lastly, but certainly not least, we’re about to re-commence negotiations with Council re the land across Dew Street being made available to us for use as an additional training field. Stay tuned. So we hope you are as excited about the prospects for season 2008 as we are. There’s plenty of work still to be done, so we’d be pleased to hear from any members who can offer assistance. Have a great season of football at Brisbane’s best club! Geoff Doyle |
