SOUTH Morang Lions Football Club will start this season as the second-largest metropolitan football club in Victoria.
Last season the Northern Football League club fielded 25 teams, seven more than the next biggest club in the league.
Only the South Metro Junior Football League’s East Brighton Vampires had more, with 27 teams.
South Morang Lions has three senior teams and 24 junior teams, ranging from the under-9s to under-17s.
While numbers are yet to be finalised before the season’s opening game on April 14, South Morang president David Craig said he expected the club would field as many teams as last season, if not more.
“We’re still trying to work it out exactly but we won’t drop any teams,” he said.
Craig cited the expansion of the South Morang area and word-of-mouth as reasons for the club’s success in registering players.
“It’s a big growth area,” he said. “We have good facilities, good people and people have been happy here. They tell their friends and word-of-mouth is the best advertising you can get.”
Craig, who has a son playing under-12s and a daughter in one of the club’s two girls’ sides, said the club’s ability to accommodate so many players was of benefit to all involved.
“With the seniors and also the cricket club, there are probably over 1000 people associated with South Morang in those facilities,” he said.
“We think the club is run very well and that sits well with parents when they are looking to get their kids playing footy for the first time.”
The club works with Dynamic Footy Skills to enhance junior player development and is active in the community. “We associate with the local Auskick and local primary schools,” Craig says. “It holds the club in good stead.”
Craig said he was not aiming to become the largest metropolitan football club in the state.
“It’s not about that. It’s about getting kids to play footy,” he said. “If it happens, it happens. We’ve got the people to handle the growth.”
