Bridport footy facing closure
• Bridport Football Club coach Joe Krushka and president Kristy Mountney urgently encourage players to sign up for the season.
By Taylor Clyne,
March 09, 2022
The Bridport community are on the brink of losing their beloved football club if they cannot significantly boost player numbers before the end of the week.
President Kristy Mountney said the reality of the situation is that if they do not gain additional players the club will not have the ability to field teams this year.
“With a lot of players retiring and with workloads within the community increasing we have a lack of players coming into the season,” she explained.
“Also throw in the impact that Covid has had on small town community sport.
“We urgently welcome any players interested to come along for a run this year to keep our great club alive.”
The club has been playing in division one of the Northern Tasmania Football Association (NTFA) for five years after leaving the North-East Football Union (NEFU).
Late last week the NTFA released their 2022 roster with Bridport included in the rollout despite only having 11 registered players at the time of
the announcement.
Coach Joe Krushka said he was surprised to see them listed given how much the club is struggling to field a seniors and reserve side.
“We don’t want our club to fall over, we have exceptional new facilities, new lights, changerooms and are a very welcoming community – we don’t want this to be the end,” he said.
The season is set to kick off on April 2 with Bridport expected to play the East Coast Swans in St Helens.
NTFA president Scott Rigby said he was quietly confident that the club would be able to meet the player requirement for this season but said there was a need to look at juniors for the future viability.
“It’s never too late, in the current climate there is a trend to have a slower uptake of player registrations with all clubs and pre-season is not what it used to be,” he said.
“Bridport are set up really well with their facilities, they just missed out on finals last year and they have a dynamic playing group – we hope players and the town get behind them.
“Junior pathways are important, and I imagine talks need to start around expanding that across the North-East to feed into clubs like Bridport who don’t currently have any juniors.”
Mr Rigby said it 100 percent was the right decision to allow the club into the NTFA competition in 2016 despite at the time not accepting Winnaleah Football Club’s application due to concerns around viability.
In October 2017 the late NTFA president Paul Reynolds said to the Advertiser that his concern remained around clubs being able to maintain a manageable and competitive list well into the future.
“Clubs have been plagued by a shortage of players and if they believe an additional club [Winnaleah] may impact on that issue, then the NTFA maybe loathe to allow another club to enter the competition,”
he said.
Fast forward to the current day Bridport is seeking at least 39 more players to allow them to meet the mark for the 2022 season.
“At the start of last season we had 90 registered players and over the course of the year it dropped down to about 60 due to work commitments, injuries and life,” Mr Krushka said.
“We need at least 50 players to just field both teams each week, let alone allowing for any of the above.
“We are working tirelessly to field teams for the love of the game, the club and to give players an opportunity to play football locally,” Mr Krushka said.
“Bridport are really flexible with training, work and family commitments, we just need the numbers, and we can work out the rest,” he added.
Currently Bridport are training at Royal Park on Monday nights and at the Bridport Football Club on Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 6pm.
All interested players and volunteers are encouraged to get in touch urgently by phoning Joe Krushka on 0409 920 629.