CUNDLETOWN Jets may be the Football Mid North Coast community club of the year for 2017, but there’s still plenty of work to do for 2018, according to secretary Michelle Kelly.
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The Jets were announced the top club at the FMNC presentation night. Football Mid North Coast takes in the area from Gloucester to South West Rocks. It was a big night for the club as Michelle was named volunteer of the year award. She's now in line for the Northern NSW honour.
“It was a real shock,’’ Michelle said.
The volunteer of the year was selected from the monthly award winners of the Newcastle Permanent sponsored promotion.
The Jets fielded teams in the six competitive age divisions in the Southern League junior competitions, with three making the grand finals. The club was also represented in the non-competitive divisions. In a first for the Jets the club won the Southern League women’s premiership when beating Tuncurry-Forster in a grand final. However, the Jets couldn’t play home games this season and Michelle said the club is working to rectify that for next year.
"The lights at our ground aren’t strong enough to play matches and the women’s games are on Friday nights,’’ she said.
“So we're raising funds to improve the lighting. We have a quote for $80,000 and we’re halfway there. The goal is to have the lights ready for next season.’’
The Jets didn’t have a side in the Southern League all age men’s competition this year. However, Michelle said it looks as though they’ll field a team in the over 35s next winter, where matches are played on Wednesday evenings.
Michelle took over as secretary last year.
“Grahame Brown did just about here everything for years, so when he stepped down we virtually had to form a committee from scratch,’’ she explained.
Michelle first became associated with the Jets when her son, William, started playing as a five-year-old. He’s 14 now.
She admits the role of secretary has been a bit of learning curve, but one she enjoys immensely.
“I’m at the ground from 8am to 1pm on game days and I usually spend about an hour a day during the week on club work,’’ she said.
The Cundletown community is getting right behind the Jets, Michelle said.
“We had a committee of four last year, then that grew to nine and we had even more people there at our annual meeting – we now have more people than positions,’’ she smiled.
Cundletown is one of just four clubs in this area with a level one accreditation and this has been acquired in the past year.
This basically requires clubs to comply with Football Mid North Coast and Football Australia criteria while the club also had to get a constitution in order. The club has also been able to get more sponsors on board and Michelle hopes this is an area where the club will continue to grow. There’ll also be some signage at the home ground in time for the kickoff next year.
“It’s been a fair bit of work, but it’s all been rewarding,’’ Michelle added.
Meanwhile Andrew Potter from Macleay Valley won the Football Mid North Coast Golden Goal award for most goals scored in the premier league.
This was announced at the presentation.
Shaun Glover, also from Macleay, won the golden gloves as the leading goal keeper.
Glen Bowman was named the top referee and Greg McDonald from Port United the administrator of the year.
Marcus Cutler from Wauchope was the coach of the year.