By ADEM SARICAOGLU
ESSENDON District Football League general manager Marc Turri is confident Burnside Heights will be able to attract enough senior players in time for 2014.
The Bears announced last week they are seeking to establish senior, reserves and under-18s teams in time for the 2014 season after entering the league’s junior ranks in 2012.
But to gain entry into the next year’s Division Two competition, Burnside Heights will have to fulfil a number of on-field and administrative requirements.
“We’re confident that they will generate numbers,” Turri said.
“Sanctuary Lakes, Manor Lakes (Western Region Football League) and East Sunbury (EDFL) have shown that once you take that leap of faith into senior football that you can generate numbers.
“There will be benchmarks from a numbers point of view, but I’m pretty confident they will reach those benchmarks quite easily,” he said.
“The main concern for us will be the knowledge they’re strong off-field and ready to take that next step.”
Club president Justin Peagram said he and the committee decided to act on the back of a ground-swell of local support for Burnside Heights to expand into senior football.
“We’ve just had continued enquiries for senior teams all the time, and we’d been just putting people off, (telling them to) give us a couple years to let us set up and that sort of stuff,” Peagram said.
“But in the last two years we’ve done a few promotional visits at shopping centres as part of the recruitment drive for juniors and we’ve probably had more response from adults than juniors.
“We were planning for it about four or five years down the track, but if the three-year mark is it then so be it, in the third year we’ll have a go.”
Burnside Heights has been in talks with the EDFL for the past month, and while both parties are keen to see the Bears playing senior football in 2014, much work still needs to be done.
“They (the EDFL) were talking about 50 (players) on the list and we’ve been planning on the fact we’d rather have 60,” Peagram said.
“But our expectations are realistic. Marc’s also sent through some financial requirements that we’d need to come up with – and we’re certainly not going to be using the juniors to pay for the senior division.
“The seniors are going to have to be self-sufficient and we’ve worked out a budget and a model which can basically cater for that.”
While the league stressed nothing has yet been confirmed, it is likely a 27th senior club in the league will expand the second-tier Division One competition from eight teams to nine.
It would mean this year’s Division One wooden spooner would avoid relegation should Burnside Heights enter Division Two next season.
