SOCCER MORNINGTON won its fifth Steve Wallace Memorial Cup on Saturday and will use its success as a springboard for a tilt at the State 1 South-East championship and an NPL berth. It was the sixth staging of the annual charity event which is a celebration of the local game and honours Stephen William Wallace, Langwarrin life-member and former club president, committeeman, coach, player and Bayside League referee who died on 19 July 2011 at the age of 54. The tournament had its fair share of controversy centring on disputed refereeing decisions and an argument over which sides should play…
Author: Craig MacKenzie
SOCCER SCRIPTWRITERS for the hit TV series Vikings could draw inspiration from the goings-on at Southern United. The NPL women’s club came into being in late 2015 as a consortium comprised of representatives from Langwarrin, Casey Comets, Mornington, Peninsula Strikers and Seaford United. There was much fanfare and high expectations for a club with the largest catchment area in the elite competition. But while trying to find its feet in the newly created league Southern found itself slowly but surely immersed in a civil war that would have brought a smile to the face of Ivar the Boneless. The club’s…
SOCCER FOOTBALL Federation Victoria will announce this week that Peninsula Strikers have been reinstated in State 2 South-East after being relegated last season. The federation contacted Strikers late last week with an offer of reinstatement and the club jumped at the chance. Reports that State 1 North-West club Bendigo City had pulled its senior team out of competition and that a State 1 South-East side had taken up that vacancy remain unconfirmed. However South Springvale, which was relegated from State 1 South-East last season is understood to have been reinstated thereby creating the vacancy for Strikers. The remarkable turnaround has…
SOCCER THE draw for the 2018 Steve Wallace Memorial Cup has been conducted and this year’s tournament features eight clubs split into two groups. Group A comprises Langwarrin, Casey Comets, Peninsula Strikers and Baxter. Group B is made up of Mornington, Frankston Pines, Seaford United and Skye United. The annual fundraiser for the emergency department at Frankston Hospital will be held at Baxter Park on Saturday 3 February. The Bayside Football Association will again supply the referees and event organiser Tanya Wallace is seeking donations for the major raffle to be conducted on the day. She can be contacted on…
SOCCER SKYE United completed the first signing coup of 2018 when it convinced scoring legend Caleb Nicholes to come out of retirement and join the State 3 South-East promotion candidate. Nicholes, 35, had three stints with Langwarrin having first joined the club in 1999. He has also played with Fitzroy City, Frankston Pines, East Richmond and Springvale White Eagles and scored 192 goals for Langy. Nicholes made 249 league appearances for the Lawton Park outfit and won an unprecedented 10 club Golden Boot awards. He retired after playing in last year’s State 1 South-East championship side and scored in the…
SOCCER SOMERVILLE Eagles are flying high after last Friday’s announcement that goalscoring legend David Greening will be the club’s new player-coach for 2018. Greening is the second founding member of Rosebud Heart senior club to switch to Somerville after Neil Herd moved there at the end of the 2016 season. The switch leaves Heart firmly on the back foot without a coach, still searching for a suitable ground and now without the man who in three seasons delivered 108 goals from 57 league and cup appearances. Greening had been mentioned as a possible Heart player-coach, Baxter offered him a player-coaching…
SOCCER MERGER talks between Rosebud Heart and Bayside League club Rosebud have stalled after the latter recently applied to join FFV ranks. Rosebud is keen to join the Metropolitan Leagues so that it can continue to play on Sundays and give its players a more challenging level of competition. State 4 South outfit Heart has shown interest in merging with its neighbour and sees the move as a great opportunity to create a large club on the southern peninsula with over 300 juniors, and senior men’s and women’s teams playing out of Rosebud’s home at Olympic Park in Besgrove Street.…
SOCCER HE is preparing for his 49th straight season at Monterey Reserve and he’s one of the most recognisable characters in the local game. Tommy Mitchell is a living legend. The 66-year-old is a life member of Frankston Pines and wears his heart on his sleeve. In more ways than one. If you haven’t seen the Edinburgh-born Mitchell at a senior match wearing one of his Heart of Midlothian scarves and bonnet festooned with club badges then you’re a newcomer to the local scene. Mitchell has three brothers – Colin, Bruce and Grant and the family migrated from Scotland in…
SOCCER LANGWARRIN has finalised its under-age squads for its inaugural season in the second tier of Victoria’s National Premier League competition. The Lawton Park outfit attracted triallists from such distant climes as far north Queensland with three Cairns teenagers from Leichhardt Lions FC getting the nod to join Kevin “Squizzy” Taylor’s under-20 squad. Taylor is a former Seaford United senior coach who was appointed coach of Bentleigh Greens’ under-20s in late 2014 and guided the youngsters to the 2015 NPL reserves championship. “I’m very happy with the squad we have put together at Langy. They are a very talented group,…
SOCCER LUCAS Elliott is just a fortnight old but Mornington fans owe the infant a debt of gratitude for the part he played in his father re-signing with the club last week. Stevie Elliott is a class act, one of the finest central defenders outside NPL ranks and for the past two months the word was that his switch to Langwarrin was all but done and dusted. Until last Thursday when the 29-year-old Englishman ended a 45-minute meeting with Mornington gaffer Adam Jamieson and assistant coach Dale White by re-committing to the club for a fourth straight season. “At the…
SOCCER A CLOSER relationship with new NPL outfit Langwarrin could be the springboard which catapults Baxter into State 2 South-East. That’s the target that new Baxter gaffer Francis Beck and director of coaching Billy McLeod have set in an ambitious five-year plan for the State 4 South club. “We’re looking at two promotions in five years,” said Beck. “If we can do it then we’d call that success. “We’re not ready to be a State 1 club yet and you have to move up then consolidate but we think that what we are aiming for is achievable.” Baxter’s generosity in…
SOCCER THERE is a remarkable talent in our midst and she only turned 12 in September. Alana Murphy was five when she played her first game for Langwarrin. She scored twice at Lawton Park that day and she’s been scoring goals for fun every since. She is the second youngest member of Victoria’s mini National Training Centre squad which competed in the 2017 women’s NPL under-15 competition. Her team beat up on most opponents throughout the season losing just one game and strolling to the title with five rounds to go. Murphy was initially attracted to soccer through the involvement…
SOCCER OSCAR Marsden, Ryan Thompson and Zach Reynolds are expected to arrive in Melbourne next year to join the Andy O’Dell revolution at Peninsula Strikers. Marsden and Thompson are due here on 10 January while Reynolds may not arrive until late February. The recently relegated Centenary Park club plans to bounce straight back into State 2 and O’Dell has been tasked with effecting a major overhaul of the senior squad. The three English imports are an integral part of his plans. Forwards Thompson and Marsden play with Brigg Town in England’s Northern Counties East League Division One. Ex-Mornington striker Ryan…
SOCCER MORNINGTON gaffer Adam Jamieson has taken responsibility for missing out on NPL promotion and has vowed that he won’t make the same mistake again. “We had a squad to do a lot better but you’re probably looking at complacency being an issue,” said Jamieson. His side finished runner-up to Langwarrin by a solitary point in the race for the State 1 South-East title and while Lawton Park fans were celebrating there was a lot of soul-searching done at Dallas Brooks Park. “You get ‘Patch’ (Ryan Paczkowski) back, then Scotty Millar then you get Josh Valadon and Aaron Root in…
SOCCER FRANKSTON Pines’ jack-of-all-trades CJ Hodgson has declared his allegiance to the Monterey Reserve club. “I’ll be there as long as my parents are involved so I think I’ll be playing at Pines for the rest of my career,” the 24-year-old said. He’s had more seasons at Pines than any other senior player and he’s also the club’s most versatile performer having played at right back, wide midfield, centre midfield, striker and he’s even worn the goalkeeper’s gloves. His career kicked off at under-6 level at Langwarrin and he made his reserves debut under then-coach Jamie Skelly as a 15-year-old…
SOCCER LOCAL soccer will never quite be the same after Peninsula Strikers announced last week that it had appointed a human tsunami called Andy O’Dell as senior coach. There has been much speculation as to the fall-out from Strikers’ relegation from State 2 South-East this year but re-elected president Trevor Johnston and his committee, which includes former coach Craig Lewis, have made a clear and unambiguous statement of intent. Ex-English pro O’Dell is renowned for his forthright views and scant regard of political correctness and he didn’t waste time in offering a blunt assessment of what needs to be done…
SOCCER THE greatest goalscorer in Victorian senior ranks and a founder member of Rosebud Heart may be on the move. English ace David Greening won his eighth straight Golden Boot award this year, a record that may never be matched, but the goals king may have worn Heart’s colours for the last time. “It’s all up in the air really,” said Greening. Heart has to find a replacement for senior coach Scott Morrison who stood down at season’s end and it also has to find a new home ground. “I don’t think they quite realise just how big a loss…
SOCCER SOUTHERN United’s all-conquering under-13s capped a stellar season with a 2-0 Grand Final victory over Calder United at ABD Stadium in Meadow Heights on Sunday. Southern had clinched the NPLW championship some weeks earlier but had lost the qualifying final 1-0 to Calder. “We told the girls if we didn’t match them physically especially in the first five minutes that they would own us so we told them to go shoulder to shoulder and be very physical but don’t foul,” said Southern head coach Emma Bracken. “We wanted to show them that we weren’t going to get pushed off…
SOCCER SOUTHERN United’s championship-winning under-13s have won their way into the NPLW Grand Final after defeating Bayside United 2-0 at Comets Stadium last weekend. The Grand Final takes place at 10am this Sunday at ABD Stadium in Meadow Heights and Southern will come face to face with its 2017 nemesis, Calder United, which finished runner-up in the title race. Calder won the qualifying final 1-0 two weeks ago forcing Southern into last Saturday’s sudden-death preliminary final. But the local club will go into the clash primed by a meticulous preparation arranged by senior coach Emma Bracken and assistant Aaron Myatt.…
SOCCER CANDELA Ferreyra-Bas is the toast of local soccer after winning the 2017 NPLW Gold Medal at a gala awards night last week. Southern United’s captain and leading scorer was a runaway winner of the award which recognises the recipient as the premier performer in Victoria’s elite women’s competition. The 21-year-old polled 39 referees votes to street the field, 10 votes ahead of runner-up Cindy Lay of Calder United. It was a night of great celebration for the local club as senior coach Rob Giabardo was named NPLW Coach of the Year. Giabardo wasted little time in calling for co-coach…