Kilburn Football Club looking for improvement after meeting amateur league player registration deadline
KILBURN Football Club is confident it can be competitive this season after meeting a league requirement of registering 50 players before last weekend.
KILBURN Football Club is confident it can be competitive this season after meeting a league requirement of registering 50 players before last weekend.
The amateur league enforced the condition on the Chics and three other clubs battling for players, telling them they would not be allowed into the competition if they did not comply.
Amateur league officials confirmed Kilburn, which last season forfeited twice in division three, lost its 18 games by an average of more than 300 points and did not have a B grade, had been accepted into division four.
Chics football director Peter Thomas said the 92-year-old club had worked hard to turn things around and would win more games than it lost this season.
If it forfeited a match, Kilburn would lose a $3500 bond it paid last year.
“We’d be extremely disappointed if we weren’t competitive,” Thomas said.
“I wouldn’t quite say last year was one of those years we had to have, but it has made us go back and have a real good look at the way we’ve done things.
“We have to thank those older guys last year that played and kept the whole thing alive.”
Thomas said new coach Matthew Whelan, a three-time premiership winner and dual Mail Medallist at the Chics, had helped bring about 20 past players back to the club.
“We sold a vision, we sold a story about how we wanted them to come back,” he said.
Kilburn’s slide from division three premier in 2012 to cellar-dweller last year came after losing more than 30 of its best players amid problems with paying some of them.
Thomas did not think the club would have another mass exodus any time soon.
“I think we’re putting things in place that are sustainable,” he said.
Amateur league chief executive John Kernahan said he was “ecstatic” the Chics had fulfilled their obligations.
Kilburn begins the season away to Salisbury on April 11.