Southern league: Start-up club Heatherhill all set to go in 2023

There’s a new football club on the scene — Heatherhill. Here’s how the Hills were formed; what they’re about, who’s behind them and their radical plan for games.

The new Heatherhill footy club will wear brown and gold colours.

Heatherhill Football Club will kick off in the Southern Football Netball League as a start-up club in 2023.

The Hills — to be based at Bruce Park, Frankston — will start out with one senior team in the Thirds competition.

They’ll wear brown and gold colours and are likely to play their games on Friday nights under lights.

Heatherhill FC is not connected with the Frankston Rovers junior club, which plays at the same venue.

Heatherhill secretary Zac White said the new club would be inclusive and provide players who can’t play at a higher level for various reasons with an opportunity to still be involved.

“It’s just something I think that’s been needed to get up in the area for a while,” White said.

“You look at the footy that’s played down this way and it gets better and better every year.

“We’re more trying to look after the blokes who are being left behind because of the way footy is going on the peninsula, because it’s getting so good it’s actually leaving (behind) quite a large portion of people who either can’t commit or they’re time poor with different life circumstances with starting a family or whatever reason.

“The Southern footy league had the thirds competition going for such a long time and it’s something we spotted and said, ‘you know what, we should jump in on this because there are blokes that want to play football, they don’t want to give it up’.

“So we figured we’ll give this a crack and put a team together.”

Zac White (left) playing for the Frankston Bombers. Picture: Hamish Blair

Heatherhill will have a distinct Frankston Bombers flavour.

White was a long time Bombers player and is a current Bombers committee member, while Heatherhill president Zach Horsely was a Bombers player and assistant coach.

White said Heatherhill was poised to announce a coach and a raft of other plans for its inaugural season.

“Essentially the whole goal of what we are doing at Heatherhill is to just keep people playing footy, keep participation levels high,’’ White said.

“The problem with footy now is once you lose someone to footy, geez, it’s hard to get them back into it, especially post Covid, people have realised just how much can be achieved at work on weekends.”

Southern league CEO Lee Hartman.

SFNL CEO Lee Hartman said Heatherhill had been planning its start for 12 months.

“It’s going to be exciting to have a new club up and running,” he said.

“They’re just going to enter the thirds with one team to start and see how that goes down the track but they’re well set up to have a decent crack at it anyway.

“From our point of view when a new club starts up it’s exciting.

“Sometimes it goes the other way when clubs are shutting the doors but to have a new one opening up it’s great news.’’

Hartman said he expected Heatherhill to be a healthy, vibrant club.

“The amount of work that they’ve put in over the 12 months, they haven’t rushed it, they’ve got everything right, ready to go, the people to run it all,” he said.

“They’ve put coaches in, administration staff, president, secretary, worked out their colours, their lease with the council and their constitution and everything so they’ve put a lot of work into it.

“Yeah, they’re ready to go and they’re set up to make it sustainable.”