By Tara Murray
Upfield has its sights set on promotion in the FV state league 1 north-west competition.
In its third season in the top state league flight, Upfield believes it has the side to make the jump into the Victorian Premier League 2 competition according to president Wally Hanna.
“We will be pushing for promotion and be much better than last year,” he said. “We have strengthened our squad.
“We want to play to win and we’ve got that winning mentality every time we go out there.
“We want to push the club to the VPL. We’re already talking with the council about how we will shape up in terms of facilities if we get to that stage.”
Hanna said they had 11 players return from last season.
They added another eight players to the club and would have a squad of 24 this season with other players promoted.
“We’ve got a lot from other state league 1 clubs and NPL [National Premier League] club as well,” Hanna said.
“It is a bit of a drive for them but we have ambition and they share that motivation to be playing for promotion.
Upfield kicks off its Australia Cup campaign on Friday against the Whittlesea Ranges.
Hanna said before the game that they were hoping to get through without any injuries.
“We’ve got about seven injuries,” he said. “We’ll play with a mix of seniors and reserves.
“We’re trying to save players for three weeks. The season is more important.
“We’ll trial some of the youngsters. We’re not worried about the result.”
Hanna said things across the club continued to go well.
He said they had seen some really good growth across the whole club. He said the only issue was not having enough room for everyone to train for longer periods of times.
“We’ve been able to attract more juniors and kids,” he said.
“We’ve grown our female program. We have five female sides this season, four junior teams and a senior team.”
