Merrifield Panthers will field sides in the Essendon District Football League junior competition for the first time this year.
Already an existing and flourishing sporting association the Panthers will launch their football club after five successful seasons with their Auskick program.
The club will play out of Merrifield Recreation Reserve, Mickleham and intend to enter under-8, under-10, under-12, and under-14 sides this year.
Junior football director Paul Higginson said it has been amazing to be able to get some kids down, being active.
“It’s been a challenge, however, the goal is those four teams,” he said. “We’re starting to get the registrations through now, we could still use a little bit more to fill out the teams a bit more.
‘Our under-8s team is pretty much full so we could be going for two teams there and we’re over halfway on our 10s and 12s, just our under-14s needs a little bit more work.”
Being a new and emerging suburb, Higginson said creating a football club to be at the heart of the community is important and a lot can be gained out of it.
“With the demographic out there, there are a lot of single parent households, there’s a lot of kids that may not have participated in sport before,” he said.
“Because we’re all relatively new to the area we’re creating friendships that might not have necessarily been formed.
“It’s been really good from a community point of view which has been really pleasing to see.”
Higginson said the EDFL has been great, working with the club to make this happen. He said he has even been talking to other clubs within the league to help get some pointers on running the program.
“I played in the league as a junior and in the seniors, it’s a great league to come out of,” he said. “It’s going to be tough competition and it’s going to be a great competition to be a part of in terms of developing.
“At the end of the day we just want kids to play football, and it doesn’t matter what colours you wear if kids are playing football, we’re happy.”
