New central Victorian soccer vision wins club backing

The proposed revamp of the competition, announced last week, followed a 12-month review by a league sub-committee and the development of a revised long-term strategic plan for the league.

Among the most critical and immediate outcomes was a change to the preferred senior competition structure to create a long-term opportunity for growth, while supporting the needs of the current senior clubs.

Under the recommendations:

* The men's competition will be separated into a two-tier structure, with League 1 designed for clubs able to field both seniors and reserves and League 2 designed for single team entries or for additional teams, where clubs have the capacity to enter extra teams.

* The women's competition will be also separated into a two-tier structure with a single team entry required for each league.

* Both competitions will allow for promotion and relegation.

* Senior competitions will be rebranded as the Central Victorian League.

The strategy has won the backing of clubs around the league.

Read more: Central Victorian soccer enters new era with major competition restructure

Eaglehawk FC president Ben Pengelly hailed the plan as a win for clubs with multiple senior teams.

"It's a good move for the continuity of clubs that have got division one and division two teams," he said.

"The league was struggling with making the draw equitable because of the random number of teams in div two versus div one.

"It's a real benefit to the club if you get to all play at home on the same day, it's nearly essential. This will simplify that a lot.

"The last couple of years it has been a bit all over the shop. If you only had a div two team, the senior team were copping a bye and sometimes you were getting three byes in a row and that's not conducive to playing or a club environment.

"So from our point of view we are looking at the equitability of it.

"It should benefit those clubs who have always had the two teams, who at times, have been at a disadvantage."

Pengelly felt the Hawks, who were last year's division one men's champions for the fourth straight season, would again be strong across the board.

"We'll be challenging for the title again. Keegan Smyth has the team rocking and rolling pretty early this pre-season," he said.

"It's been a great pre-season so far."

Strathdale president Andrew Mertens said the club fully supported what the league;s vision to strengthen and expand the competition.

"The last few seasons, COVID hasn't helped with teams missing out in different divisions. It's meant the top division - division one - has had a heap of byes," he said.

"There have been times when teams have not played for three weeks and row, that's not sustainable.

"(Missing) two in a row is bad enough, but when you hit the third it's particularly bad from an injury point of view. Whatever you do to try to get fit and ready for games, there's nothing quite like match fitness.

"Three weeks with a game is when you start getting those soft tissue injuries - it's not good.

"Hopefully it all works out, but that will be dependant on the number of entries we get in the different competitions as to how it all works out."

Mertens did not wish to speculate on whether the plan would immediately bolster the number of teams entered across the board, but acknowledged a solid framework had been established to eventually achieve that goal.

He pointed to the introduction of the three Shepparton teams and Tatura to the competition in 2017 as evidence of positive change for regional soccer.

"Their competition was obviously too small to be viable and ours needed a bit of an injection of new blood, so it was good for both," he said.

Read more: New BASL era begins with new teams joining competition

Spring Gully United president David Ford believed the restructure would give soccer in the region a much-needed boost.

"Having sides playing in the reserves and not seniors has been pretty awful for everybody, with lots of byes, so hopefully this is something that will fix all that up," he said.

"It would be interesting if we did put a thirds side in, whether they would commit to travelling all the way to Swan Hill or Echuca two or three times a year.

"It will be interesting to see how it goes, but it is definitely worth a try.

"I guess it will come down to which clubs put what sides in.

"I have thought for a while that Bendigo needs a couple more senior clubs in town."

Going forward, Ford felt the league would be best served by having at least one extra Bendigo club in the competition, located in the south of the city, ideally at Kangaroo Flat.

"Whether the league or anyone could set one up, but we could probably do with two or three more clubs with the amount of juniors," he said.

"There used to be 10 teams in or near Bendigo and now we're down to six.

"We've got to be looking out for all our clubs, otherwise there is no one left to play."

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