SFL team Hackham Football Club lodges application to join Adelaide Footy League in 2021
A Southern Football League Club is eyeing off a spot in the Adelaide Footy League in 2021 and has lodged an official application to join.
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A Southern Football League Club has made a bid to join the amateurs in 2021.
Hackham, which fields one team in the SFL’s Sunday C grade competition, is hopeful its application to be part of the Adelaide Footy League next season is accepted.
The Hawks are the only team to have lodged an official submission to join the Adelaide Footy League in 2021.
Hackham president Glenn Rowe said the club had put a proposal forward to the SFL at the end of last year to return to Saturday football.
But because the Hawks do not have three junior teams, their application was denied.
Rowe said returning to Saturday football was paramount to help the club grow and switching to the Adelaide Footy League was a way forward.
“We are still stuck in Sunday football with the SFL,” Rowe said.
“It sort of leaves us no room to rebuild the club and although the group we have now is really good, it’s hard to recruit as people don’t really want to play on Sundays.
“If we can get the men’s teams back playing on Saturday it gives us more scope to build our teams which is what our main focus is.”
The SFL dumped Hackham from its A and B-grade competitions in February 2017 for failing to register enough players to fill two teams.
But Rowe was confident the club would be able to fill two teams – as per the Adelaide Footy League’s requirement – if its bid was accepted.
The Hawks women’s team, however, would remain in the SFL, with Rowe saying it was “the best place for it at the moment”.
“We are coming from a fair way back,” Rowe said.
“But we go in confident (with the bid) that we’ve put the right measures in place and we feel like we are in the best place to make that move now.
“We’ve been working really hard to make our club a really family-focused club.
“The group we have is led by a great player/coach in Luke Allan and everyone is there for the right reasons, to play footy.”
Adelaide Footy League chief executive John Kernahan said the Hawks was in the process of being reviewed.
Kernahan said Hackham had satisfied preliminary requirements, though there were still a few hoops to jump through.
The league’s executive committee would assess the application then existing clubs would vote and approve the competition composition which would or could include any new teams.
Kernahan expected a decision on Hackham’s application to be made before the end of this season.