Welcome to all players, parents, volunteers, supporters and all those with an interest in the Maitland Football Club. I write this newsletter to provide as much up to date and reliable information that is available to us, regarding the 2020 season and beyond. The intention is for this to be a weekly publication, and given the two basic requirements of 1. worthwhile content and 2. time restraints, we shall endeavour to provide on a regular basis.

“What’s the Latest in Regard to 2020 Season Start”

This is obviously the main topic of conversation and interest and so I shall try and provide for you as much information in point form as I can, as follows-

  1. Nothing at this stage is confirmed. Much has been discussed and suggested, but ultimately the major decisions will come from the NSW govt and FFA/NNSWF – so please accept the following as indications only.
  2. NSW govt has given us the go ahead to prepare for training. However, each club and each council needs to confirm and comply with many requirements before that can proceed. As this was only announced late last week, we need to wait to get correct council feedback before proceeding. Our Football Executive are trying to have details sorted with an aim to start training again during week commencing 1st June. You will hear more details early next week on the circumstances of training start. Youth coaches are meeting on Sunday afternoon.
  3. It is a likelihood that Youth and SAP competitions will be completed, but that will take until late October. It will need to involve some mid week games.
  4. It is likely that Seniors will have a shortened season with a 5 team semi final series. There will be no gates or canteen trading.
  5. For all games there will be special considerations regarding behaviour, conditions of play, and logistics.
  6. To allow U18s to have a full season, they may be aligned with the Youth teams.
  7. This presents scheduling issues for us for the U12s, whom we want to play their home games at Cooks.

Club Marketing Support

Difficult times are great opportunities for organisations to break open new ideas and concepts.

MFC Executives have had a focus on ensuring that we are able to achieve stability in our finances for both season 2020 and 2021. We have made some strong decisions in restructuring our budget for 2020 year, and that has meant needing to renegotiate with players and coaches. We cannot express how pleased we are, in how these negotiations have been received with such cooperation and support from so many.

However, there is still a lot of work to be done. We need to enforce to our traditional business partners (sponsors) that their financial investment in us is worthwhile. So, we are working on several marketing concepts that will allow us to adapt to these circumstances.

We are looking for support and assistance from our parents (and players) over the next couple of months. This is an opportunity to work with members of the Executive (Chris Rafferty, Craig McGregor and myself), in implementing these new concepts.

You don’t necessarily need any marketing experience, that can be provided by others, we just need people with the enthusiasm to get stuck in and play a very worthwhile role for the Magpies.

If you are interested or need more information please email – president@maitlandfc.com.au to arrange a chat about the role.

Magpies 2021 UK Tour

In 2016 and then again in 2019, Maitland FC took a player and parent tour group over to the UK and France. Given all circumstances being in place, we would like to start conceptual planning for another tour scheduled for 2021.

At this stage, we will just be looking for expressions of interest. But some initial details are that:

  • The UK tour operator has indicated that (hopefully) by the last quarter of 2021, tourism should be back up and operating.
  • Tour to be of 2 week duration.
  • For this tour, we will open it up to include age groups – U16s, U15s and U14s from 2021.

– The tour includes –

  • Professional training sessions e.g. The Liverpool Academy
  • Games against equivalent local UK clubs. These games would be planned as ‘double headers” to cater for our 3 age groups.
  • Visits to EPL stadiums – Old Trafford, Anfield, Stamford Bridge.
  • Attendance at EPL games
  • Sight Seeing, as available

We will have the convenience of coordination through Phil Dando, who is the contact with UK and a coaching mentor for the Magpies. Phil has been the organiser of several similar tours.

Over the next couple of weeks, we shall give interested families the opportunity to learn more details and provide their input by way of a Zoom video conference.

So lastly, on behalf of the Club Executive and committee, I thank all parents and players for their patience and support over the last couple of months. It seems now we are getting very close to being able to be together, in a limited sense to once again enjoy our football.

Hope fully, at the next weekly edition, all details of back to training, and back to game day have been resolved and ready for communication.