SFNL 2025: St Kilda City seniors and juniors to be affiliated from 2025

St Kilda City has trodden the next step on its tedious rebuild path to safeguard the long-term sustainability of the club. Find out more.

The St Kilda City senior and junior clubs will commence a formal partnership from 2025. Picture: Steve Tanner

St Kilda City has trodden the next step on its tedious rebuild path after locking in an affiliation with its junior club.

Club president Mel Starr confirmed St Kilda City and the St Kilda City Junior Club have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to commence a formal partnership from 2025 onwards.

“It improves our long-term sustainability in a big way and provides a really good opportunity for the junior teams to train with the seniors as well, hopefully we’ll use that to build under-19s in a couple of years,” Starr said.

“The junior affiliation means that we create a really definite pathway for our local kids to stay within their local leagues, the affiliation also means they come out of the juniors and into senior football as one-point players, which increases their opportunities to play senior football.”

As part of the move, there will be St Kilda City Junior training at the Peanut Farm before the seniors, instead of the traditional Wattle Watson Oval, to begin fostering their “connection” to the ground.

Three St Kilda City senior players have also taken up coaching across the junior ranks as a result.

St Kilda City players huddle at a break. Picture: Steve Tanner.

The Saints were dealt a cruel blow when they were relegated from Division 2 last season despite finishing second from the bottom – to accommodate the additions of Narre Warren and Berwick Springs – having only been informed that would be the case with three weeks remaining in the season.

It was the club’s second relegation in as many years after a mass mid-season player exit scuppered their 2023 campaign.

Despite dropping to Division 3 ahead of this season, St Kilda City has retained the bulk of its playing group including the entire top five from last season’s best and fairest.

“At the end of the day we’ve lost two or three players but we’ve gained players with a lot of experience,” Starr said.

“We’ve retained probably 90 per cent of our senior players from last year … we had a lot of players that filled in last year when everyone was on their European holidays and they’ve all recommitted for a full season, and they were super strong.”

As the Saints turn a new leaf, they will also add a women’s program to the fold as well as an electronic scoreboard at the Peanut Farm.

“We’re really focused again on building a strong culture at the club where people are committed, they do volunteer shifts on canteen and barbecue,” Starr said.

“There’s certainly no mercenaries or anyone playing just for money at the club which I think is super positive.

“We’re really hopeful that most, if not all, home games we play will have a women’s game (beforehand) as well.

“Last year was about surviving, now it’s about growing.”