General News
10 August, 2023
Pathway league: From out of nowhere
AFL Central Victoria has dusted off a 40-year-old discarded football structure in a bid to reshape football in the region. And the commission’s talk of a new competition for clubs “who feel that the league they are currently competing in is not...
AFL Central Victoria has dusted off a 40-year-old discarded football structure in a bid to reshape football in the region.
And the commission’s talk of a new competition for clubs “who feel that the league they are currently competing in is not aligned to their short- and long-term goals” caught leagues and clubs off-guard late Friday afternoon.
An email to Loddon Valley, Heathcote and Bendigo league officials and clubs came days after a hastily convened AFL summit and just before Heathcote considered league switch pitches from Marong and Maiden Gully.
News of the AFL Central Victoria’s stand-alone proposal was broken online by the Loddon Herald within half hour of general manager Craig Armstead telling clubs the new structure was on the table for 2024.
Several club presidents later told the Loddon Herald: “No idea where this has come from. It certainly wasn’t discussed when we were all together at the summit.”
Loddon Valley president Simon Tuohey, who with other league leaders had not been invited to the summit, said all options had to be considered for the future of football in the region.
AFL’s other proposal for a two-tier promotion and relegation league mirrors what existed in Bendigo when the Golden City League was rolled into the Bendigo League after a 1980 Victorian Country Football League report predicted local football would wither without change.
According to some sources, the two options seem pitched at struggling Bendigo league clubs Kangaroo Flat, Maryborough, Castlemaine and Kyneton. Reigning Loddon Valley premiers and 2024 raging favourites Marong and Maiden Gully are also on the radar.
The restructure of Bendigo football later saw Marong and Maiden Gully come to Loddon Valley league in the 1980s.
Neither Panthers’ chief Danny Tyler or Maiden Gully’s Chris Garlick returned phone calls on whether the new AFL Central Victorian proposal would alter their bids to join Heathcote. Heathcote clubs were meeting last night to decide their fate.
Armstead said: “While clearly at very early stages of development, a new competition would include senior, reserves and thirds football teams and both senior and junior netball teams - the exact number of teams to be confirmed.
“One possible operating model would be a new stand-alone competition - eg Central Vic Football League - and another model could be a second division of the Bendigo Football Netball League with a promotion and relegation system operating. The BFNL, HDFNL and LVFNL would all continue to operate,” he said.
AFL Central Victoria this year started an under 18 football competition but only attracted five Loddon Valley junior sides.
Maiden Gully, that has cited junior pathways as a reason to switch leagues, has not fielded a junior team for two seasons.
However, Maiden Gully junior club, still a formal separate entity to YCW, held a special meeting of parents last week to discuss team age group options for 2024 including Loddon Valley and Heathcote leagues.
The meeting was attended by an estimated 20 parents. The junior entity has made no comment on the meeting.