George Town and Winnaleah football clubs have joined forces for 2018.
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Following the North Eastern Football Union’s demise and a failed bid during the off-season to join the Northern Tasmanian Football Association’s division 2 competition, the Magpies approached the Saints as their club of choice for some of its players to stick together and play as a group.
George Town president Thomas Bell said the arrangement was a great result for football in general and that he was in discussions with Bridgenorth to move its division 1 round 12 fixture from Blue Gum Park to Winnaleah Oval on June 30.
“Winnaleah approached us, as they no longer have football being played out there, to see if we could help them in some way,” Bell said on Tuesday.
“We’ve had long ties with Winnaleah with players going backwards and forwards between clubs over the term and we’ve never had any issues.
“It’s a win-win situation because the last thing I want to see is a football club close, we’ve had too many of them in the past.
“This is an opportunity to allow Winnaleah to re-group after the NEFU came to an end.”
Saints coach Allan O’Sign supported his president, saying it was “a positive move”.
“We are hoping to gain between 10 and 20 players to come into our club, which will provide us will tremendous depth,” he said.
The NTFA Council rejected Winnaleah’s proposal in November citing the unavailability of players.
However, NTFA president Paul Reynolds said he has been in contact with Winnaleah on several occasions since.
“I’ve given them an indication that they are free to make another application this year should they seek to do so,” he said.
“This is a great this as we want to encourage people top play football, but it’s got to be in a viable way.
“We had a game at Pyengana last year that the East Coast Swans hosted and it was fantastic and it was really great for the community.”
Winnaleah’s Lester Rainbow could not be contacted for comment, however, the club posted on it’s Facebook page in February that it was in discussions with George Town, and pictures of a joint training session in Winnaleah two weeks ago.