Bridgewater-Callington backs out of merger with Ironbank-Cherry Gardens in Hills FL

A Hills football club has decided to back out of a merger after one season, opting to keep its identity over fielding a senior side in 2024.

A Hills Football League club has backed out of a major first division merger after amalgamating with another club for a full season.

The Bridgewater-Callington Raiders Football Club joined forces with the Ironbank-Cherry Gardens Football Club under a memorandum of understanding ahead of season 2023 due to dwindling numbers of senior players and volunteers, but has decided to forego plans to fully amalgamate in order to maintain its identity.

The club, which had been playing as Ironbank Bridgewater in the Hills FL’s top division this season, recently held a meeting with Ironbank-Cherry Gardens to decide its future and concluded it would rather remain as an individual club at the junior level and miss senior footy.

“We’ve actually had a really enjoyable season at junior level and the question started being asked, do we actually have to merge?”, club president John Zantvoort said.

“The MOA allowed us to see what amalgamation looked like and the further we went the more we probably realised we might not have to – our membership doesn’t want to lose the identity of the Bridgewater-Callington Footy Club and we thought that might have eventually happened if we merged.

Bridgewater-Callington will forego senior footy next season but remain as an individual club at junior level. Picture: Bridgewater-Callington Raiders

“We need to be clear this has nothing to do with Ironbank-Cherry Gardens, we’ve gotten along brilliantly with them and we did a lot of stuff together, there’s been no complaints and we’re prepared to support them whenever we can.

“We were very happy with them and to a degree we’ve probably let them down.”

The Raiders will field a number of junior teams next season including a stand-alone U14 side, but will see its U16s and U18s teams remain connected with Ironbank as the ‘Iron Raiders’.

“We’ve still got an association with Ironbank and have no issues with that,” Zantvoort said.

“We want an U14 team but if that doesn’t get up we’ll feed those kids through as part of Iron Raiders.

“We’ve had more Auskickers than ever and really strong numbers at junior level. Our senior representation is just so low that we can’t help them in that respect.”

The Raiders have managed to maintain a strong junior base at the club. Picture: Bridgewater-Callington Raiders

While the club will not field any senior sides in the short-term future, Zantvoort could not rule out a return to senior footy down the line.

“That certainly has been mentioned, we probably can get a C Grade up but we’d need people to put their hand up to do the work.

“If it happens we’ll certainly support it and make it happen but we’re not too concerned with that level of footy at the moment, we’re quite focused on juniors.”

Ironbank-Cherry Gardens has accepted Bridgewater-Callington’s decision.

“We thank all the Bridgewater players who joined us this season in the seniors teams, U14s girls, and Iron Raiders … we have loved having you all on board and trying to make the best of the season,” a club spokesperson said in a statement.

“We also thank those people at Bridgewater who worked with us this year as we tried to make the best of what turned out to be a challenging year.”

Ironbank-Bridgewater currently sits bottom of division one.