By Nick Creely
Now that the talk is over, Pakenham football president Darren Sidebottom is looking forward to the Lions’ future as part of the proposed ‘AFL Greater East’.
At the Special General Meeting (SGM) on 6 June, the members of both the Pakenham Football Club and Pakenham Lions Netball Club voted to accept the invitation from AFL Yarra Ranges to join them for divisional football in 2019.
It comes as a relief for Sidebottom, who said the club can now plan for it’s future.
“Now we know where we’re heading next year, and it’s exciting for us moving forward, we can now start signing coaches and players,” he told the Gazette.
“It just means we’re not in limbo, we know where we’re going.”
While it was a long process, which involved the possibility of joining the Gippsland League, Sidebottom said the club did its due diligence and is confident they’ve made the right call.
“There was close to probably 100 hours of work done on this, people making phone calls, meetings with other leagues – we spoke to Eastern, AFL Gippsland about West Gippsland and Gippsland, and we decided we wanted to keep our football and netball together,” he said.
“That and travel, Gippsland has netball too, but it came down to the point where no one wanted to travel two and a half hours down to Bairnsdale.”
Sidebottom was full of praise for how the divisional structure will work, and hopes it will help struggling clubs get the chance to rebuild.
“The divisional structure is the most important aspect of it, and that’s what we’re after – it gives clubs that are struggling the chance to go down for a few years and build up and head back,” he said.
“That’s what all the clubs have been crying out for, and they’ve offered it – AFL Greater East’s proposal has been fantastic.”
Pakenham will now go through the formal application process with AFL Yarra Ranges.
