Scotch College

OSFC looks to 2007

 

The start of any new football season is a time for optimism, high expectations and brave predictions, but the Old Scotch Football Club has many sound reasons to look to 2007 with confident anticipation. Here’s a sample:

We have an exciting young player list.

Although we lost more than 1200 games of experience with the retirement of several long-serving players, the Seniors, Reserves and Thirds all made the finals in 2006, and are looking to build on that achievement.

We are anticipating a healthy influx of boys from Scotch’s premiership-winning 1st XVIII.

We are enjoying the fruits of our $35,000 investment in refurbishing our clubrooms at Camberwell Sportsground.

We have had a magnificent response to our quest to raise funds for the pavilion upgrade at Camberwell (at time of writing $75,000 has been raised towards our target of $125,000 thanks to the generosity of our supporters and friends).

We have a hard-working and committed club committee and an experienced and expert match committee led by Bruce Armstrong.

We have an excellent coaching team, led by Club Coach Barry Price.

In all, we made excellent progress towards our goal of ‘Building sustainable TEAM success’.

The club’s 2007 committee was elected at the annual general meeting in November. It is: Tim Shearer (President), Ian McMurtrie (Vice-President and Secretary), David Ashton (Assistant Secretary), Andrew Barton (Treasurer), Bruce Armstrong, David McCleery, Pam Tummel, John Gray, Rohan Aujard and Scott Montgomery (general committee).

On-field success is of course our major focus in any season. In 2007 a major off-field focus will be on the redevelopment of the Camberwell Sportsground pavilion. This will undoubtedly set a benchmark for all clubs in the Victorian Amateur Football Association, and we are eagerly anticipating its completion in mid-2007. There will be short-term pain during the construction period, but the long-term gain will be incalculable.

The City of Boroondara has allocated $800,000 towards the pavilion upgrade. The football club needs to raise $125,000 to contribute to the new $1 million facilities, which will include new player changing rooms, gym, medical room, sports science facilities, electronic scoreboard and coaches’ boxes. The response by the Scotch Family so far has been superb. If you would like to help the club to meet its fundraising goal, please contact me on 9810 4302.

The new season will present many challenges, both on and off the field, but I’m confident our players, committee, match committee, members and supporters will successfully meet those challenges.

Tim Shearer
President, Old Scotch Football Club