PETONE FOOTBALL CLUB (INC)
ANNUAL REPORT 2019/2020
I am pleased to provide this annual report outlining the Club’s performance during the 2019/2020 Financial Year and 2020 football season.
CLUB OFFICIALS:
Those people holding office for the financial year were as follows:
Patron Position Not Filled President Campbell Sutherland Chairman Matt Bliss Secretary Barry Pickering Treasurer Bruce Jensen Recording Secretary Clare Ladd Executive Committee Jeremy Bowen, Brendon May, Daryll Pickering, Michael Pickering. Auditor DJ Turner & Associates Life Members Phil Pickering, Campbell Sutherland, Graham Hickling, Barry Pickering, Sue Pickering, Ray Bell, Andy Badrick, Craig Deadman
The position of Patron has remained unfilled since the 2013/2014 AGM in the absence of a suitable person to bring value through this role to the club.
OVERVIEW:
This is my second year as Chair and it has certainly been easier in some respects as not so many new things to learn about, although there has always been new matters to deal with to ensure the club remains relevant and successful. COVID-19 has caused great disruption to the football season with two weeks before the season was about to begin the country was put into Alert Level 1 for five weeks meaning that all but essential workers were to stay at home, and no group training or games allowed. Alert Level 3 for two weeks after that also meant our training was limited but still could not play football. We finally were able to play at Alert Level 2 and we had two weeks of training before the season began. We were able to have a full season for all teams, Senior and Junior – starting in early June and finishing in early October, but many divisions had reduced team numbers to ensure two rounds of football were played and promotion/relegation continued as normal.
Our Men’s 1st team achieved the goal of staying in the Central league which proved to be a big step up for the team. Charlie Howe coached the Men’s 1st team for the first half of the season and was replaced by Besim Balicevac for the second half of the season. Our Women’s 1st team acquitted
1 | P a g e themselves well in the W-League again and made it to the semi-finals of the Kelly Cup, and the Women’s Reserve team also did well in the Women’s Premier league. The Men’s reserve team achieved its goal of gaining promotion back to Capital 1 and it was great to celebrate this success.
Our Junior section has done well again with the settling in of the Mitre 10 MEGA Petone Settlers Talent Centre with the first year of the Capital Football sanctioned Talent Development Pathway (TDP) in which we entered three teams in the 13th, 14/15th and U17 grades. Our financial position is stable but can always do with improvement around sponsorship and fundraising as we had to cancel two fundraising events this year due to COVID-19 Alert level gathering size restrictions. We have good playing numbers, good support at the club which creates a great atmosphere, some great coaches and strong committees providing leadership, governance and management.
I would like to acknowledge the Football Advisory Committee who focussed heavily on getting the Men’s 1st team result in 2020 and the Men’s Reserve team promotion – more detail about this in the Men’s football section below.
ADMINISTRATION:
This year four of the maximum eight positions for the Executive Committee were filled alongside the elected officers at the last AGM. During the year Clare Ladd was unable to perform her duties as recording secretary due to a stroke from which she is now recovering well. The Executive Committee continued to focus our future direction in the following areas:
Our top men’s teams staying in the top league and two leagues down from that for the reserves, and our top women's teams staying to the top two leagues. We have an ageing asset in the clubrooms that has potential. Our junior numbers are significant, creating a clear pathway that links them to senior football. Our engagement with members and parents can always be improved.
In particular we have continued to grow and develop the Mitre 10 MEGA Petone Settlers Talent Centre including a Community Skills program within it and the TDP at its peak. Feedback has been mixed, largely about a lack of clear direction and communication. Although we have a great group engaged with the governance and administration of the programme, the Technical Director (Roger Torres) in his first year in the role is working through how to make the required improvements as it was affected significantly by the COVID-19 restrictions this year. We continue to work through the challenges and have created a Sub-Committee to guide the programme going forward.
We have been provisionally accredited to the Capital Football Talent Development Pathway which involved appointing suitably qualified coaches (Director OFC/NZF B Licence qualified and head coaches C Licence qualified), and presentation of a training program for 32 weeks throughout the year for 13th, 14/15th (both mixed) and U17 boys grades.
We completed the Kitchen upgrade project in February 2020 and it was funded largely by grant funding. We were hoping to start on the external cladding replacement project in early 2021 but unfortunately our grant funding application has been declined.
We continue to have the challenge of attracting new volunteers for individual roles that can spread the overall workload. However we do have a great group of dedicated volunteers with a few more coming forward through the year which is encouraging. Sue Pickering continued as the Bar Manager
2 | P a g e role scheduling bar staff (an area where we always need more help). The kitchen continues to be run by Henry from Cookies Café who feeds visiting team and provides hot food on club days – it appears to be worthwhile for him so we will continue this next year.
I do encourage people who cannot commit to an Executive Committee position but who have something to offer the Club with a specific, more focussed role, to put themselves forward.
The Women’s Management Committee has not been in place this year so Barry Pickering, Jinece Bakhos and myself have done our best to ensure the women’s football needs are meet.
The Men’s Football Manager position is being carried out by Barry Pickering. The Football Advisory Committee (FAC) has focused on Men’s football matters, and due to the lack of a formal Women’s Football Committee they have overseen some of the Women’s football matters. Two women’s representatives are on the FAC and the FAC will then oversee all Women’s football matters.
The Junior Management Committee under Mark Allen’s leadership continues to do a great job in ensuring well over 500 junior players enjoyed their experience at Petone each week. They have also made a significant contribution to the work that is being done around the talent centre pathway and fund raising.
HIGHLIGHTS:
At the annual Capital Football awards evening we had three playing nominations in respect of Sean De Roo for the Capital 1-4 player of the Year and Ellen Fibbes for Women’s Young Player of the Year. Although there did not win their recognition was very appreciated, but Ellen was selected in the publicly voted W League team of the year. We were delighted to be nominated and won the following non playing awards:
Programme of the year (Iain MacIntyre, Jeff Bell and many club contributors) Social media club of the year (Angela Eglinton, Jeremy Bowen, Jeff Bell) Administrator of the year (Barry Pickering) Volunteer of the year (Graham Hickling)
The Mitre 10 MEGA Petone Settlers Talent Centre programme continued to grow through the year with a lot of participants on Terms 2 and 3 with a drop of in participation in Term 4 again. We signed a major sponsor for the programme being Mitre 10 MEGA for 3 years. The years programme was significantly impacted by COVID-19 gathering restrictions. We are now focused on improving the programme by establishing a Sub-Committee to guide improvement and success in the future.
The Men’s 1st team retained its place in the Central League. The Men’s Reserve team won Capital 2 and got promoted to Capital 1 in 2020. The Women’s 1st team and Reserve Team acquitted themselves well in the W-League and Women’s Premier League respectively. Also an honourable mention to the Untouchables (effectively our Men’s 4th team) who were runners up in Wellington 3 gaining promotion to Wellington 2 for 2020.
The club continues to be well represented by our young players:
Ariana Gray was Vice Captain of NZ Maori Women’s team, in the NZ Under 17s squad, and in the Capital Football Talented Athlete Programme.
3 | P a g e Libby Boobyer, Ellen Fibbes, Ariana Gray, Caelin Patterson and Carolyn O’Reily were selected for the Capital Football 2020 National Women’s League training squad. Sam Pickering was selected by Hawkes Bay United to play in the 2020/21 ISPS Handa Premiership (National League)
Well done to all of these players.
SENIOR FOOTBALL:
Men’s Football
This season we fielded five senior men's teams, four masters’ teams and one U17 team. This was one less team from last season.
It was a great season for the Men’s 1st team staying in Central League and for the Men’s Reserve team winning Capital 2 and gaining promotion to Capital 1 in 2020. Congratulations to the coaches, managers and players who put in a huge effort right from pre- season through to the end. Overall it was a good season with three other teams finishing 2nd and two finishing 3rd in their divisions.
The Club was very keen to ensure that in 2020 the Men’s 1st team stayed in the Central league. This goal was picked up and very much driven by the Football Advisory Committee (Wayne Ebert (Chair), Steve Whitehead, Daryll Pickering, Barry Pickering, Brendon May and Matt Bliss). This group played a strong role in ensuring that good planning and preparation for a successful campaign was in place. This included early retention of key players within the club, looking at new players to strengthen the team, and securing the coaches and managers for 1st and Reserves and making the very big decision about changing the Men’s 1st team coach halfway through the season. Also, along with the coaches setting out the culture that we wanted to instil within both the 1st team and Reserves (e.g. setting up a players committee and organising player meetings). To be fair not everything went to plan and we had some hiccups with player recruitment and finishing 9 th in the Central league – but goal achieved none the less.
The Men’s 1st team had a few additions to the squad and a strong influence of youth again. We had a patchy start to the season, however we went on to gain valuable points in 6 of the last 9 games of the season.
The Men’s Reserve Team won Capital 2 with two games to go in the season. Retaining most players from last year and an injection of a lot of young players as well as players from our 1st team last year, resulted in some great performances and scoring 54 goals. Coached by Ben Feld and assisted by Richard Wake, who both led this group well, and created the cohesive team culture which is required to be successful. We are very focused on continuing this run next year in Capital 1.
The 3rd team coached and managed by Chris Hosnell and Steve Davey started very strongly again. Unfortunately their form dropped away with some very tight losses causing them to lose momentum but where one result away from finishing 3rd. With a really solid base of players and a good team culture, with the coaches continuing next year and keen to help the club and the reserve team, we are confident in their success next year.
Again we struggled with numbers for the Under 17’s due to players moving to other clubs and the distraction of College football, so we decided to only field one team. This group was part of our TDP programme and without a doubt significantly benefited from this lift in training and developed their footballing skills. We are having a serious focus on rebuilding in this U17 space.
4 | P a g e Our Under 19 team have just competed in the 2020 National Youth Tournament in Napier over Labour weekend. With the addition of a couple of new players the team competed very well winning 2 games and losing 3 games by very small margins. A great coaching, management and support crew once again. We were delighted to later learn that guest player, Felix Timmins-Scanlon, was named in the Tournament team.
2020 Senior Men's Teams, their grades and final league positions are as follows:
1st Team Central League 9th Reserves Capital 2 1st (Promoted to Capital 1) 3rd Team Capital 3 6th Stonecutters Capital 4 8th Untouchables Wellington 3 2nd (Promoted to Wellington 2) Armanis Masters 1 7th Left Over Stew Masters 4 3rd Mighty Masters Masters 5 7th Dreamers Over 44’s 3rd U17 Cap Dev League Under 17 CDL 8th
Women’s Football
We competed well in the W-League this year dropping down the table to 5 th in the last few weeks of the campaign. We picked up a few new players to the squad this to strengthen the team and we are very proud to have reached the Semi Finals of the Kelly Cup, narrowly losing to Wairarapa 0-1. Our Coach Kevin Torres and Manager Caitlin Hendry had a very difficult job with a very short pre-season, but we did manage to compete very well in the league playing some good football and always improving.
Our Reserve Team coached by Roger Torres had a goal to do well in the Capital Premier league which they achieved by finishing 5th. We are very proud to have teams in the top two Women’s leagues in the area. Our U18 team coached by Alex McIntosh, Amanda Hewitt and supported by many other Women’s first team players, had a great season providing a pathway to Women’s football and finishing 4th. We have many great young players coming into Senior Women’s football and they have been well supported playing in the highest level they can for the benefit of the players and the club.
We entered the U19 Napier tournament for the second time this year and were one of very few clubs that enter teams in both the boys and girls tournaments. It was a success in developing our young players and the team had 2 wins and 1 draw and 2 losses, not quite doing enough to get out of the group stage, but a great improvement on last year.
2020 Senior Women's Teams, their grades and final league positions are as follows:
1st Team W-League 5th Reserves Capital Premier 5th U18 Team U18 4th
5 | P a g e CLUB AWARDS:
The winners of our club awards for the 2020 season were:
Footballer of the Year Michael Pickering Sportsperson of the Year Phil Pickering Most Improved Cameron Irving Most Promising (male) Ollie Pickering Most Promising (female) Caelin Patterson Best and Fairest Mark Webber Golden Boot Adam Chard (20) Team of the Year Men’s ReserveTeam Women’s Player of the Year Ellen Fibbes Women’s Best and Fairest Jess Kincaid Women’s Most Improved Ella Verhoeven
JUNIOR/YOUTH FOOTBALL:
It was another busy start to the season for our junior management committee, along with grade managers and coaches, registrations opened in early February, the season being put on hold late March then ramping up to the season start in June.
This year saw another bumper number of registrations for the club with over 500 junior members across our First Kicks programme (4-6 year olds) and 38 junior mixed league teams (9th - 14/15th grades) and six girls only teams.
The continuation of the Mitre 10 MEGA Petone Settlers Talent Centre, as well as the newly formed Talent Development Programme (TDP), gave our players of all abilities the opportunity to develop their skills over and above the weekly team trainings. Thank you to Roger Torres (TDP Technical Director), Gary Jenkins (Junior Director of Football) and their coaches for assisting our players in this environment.
COVID-19 resulted in our planned raffle and quiz night being cancelled, so we were delighted to receive so much support for the annual Big Goal Day, which raised over $6,000 for the club.
We were once again well represented in tournaments over the season. Notables were the 10th Settlers winning at the Taupo McCartney tournament along with our 12th grade coming second while our 9th and 13th grade also attended and competed really well. At the Western Suburbs Graded tournament, again Petone went really well winning three of the six grades and making the semi-finals in two others. Our 7th, 9th and 10th grade won with Petone FC just missing out on winning the overall best club for the third year running. Teams also competed in the Wynton Rufer and Wellington United tournaments this year with some awesome results across all the grades.
A huge thanks to the junior management committee for their tireless work along with all our awesome grade managers & junior coaches.
HILTON PETONE TOURNAMENT:
6 | P a g e The 2020 Powerex Tournament for the Hilton Petone Cup was the 66 th year since the Club inaugurated the Tournament and followed a similar structure as in recent years. Division 1 consisted of 8 teams this year split into two groups of four. The winner was Tawa who beat Lower Hutt City in the final which ended up being played on May 30th due to the COVID-19 break. Consequently we couldn’t complete Division 2, which had 14 entries, and only made it to the semi final stage before COVID-19 intervened.
FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE:
Our financial performance for the 2019/2020 year resulted in an operating Profit of $553 after depreciation of $13.3k and Capital Grant funding of $67.7k.
This year has been one of investment by the club and specific goals to be achieved, for which there were two significant areas, being: The kitchen upgrade for which grant income was received and the costs have been capitalised as fixed assets Mitre 10 MEGA Petone Settlers Talent Centre improved its operating loss to $3.6k thanks to the Sponsorship received from Mitre 10 MEGA, as we continue to bed it in and improve it.
We had a big push on extra shirt sponsorship and signboard sponsorship as well as Mitre 10 MEGA, increasing sponsorship income by $20k, but this came at a cost in the first year doing all of the signage. Our Fundraising also got impacted by COVID-19 having to cancel two events. We slightly increased our subs even though Capital Football and NZ Football affiliation fees later dropped due to COVID-19, and as a contra to this we did not hold our club raffle this year.
We are still very focused on creating an operating surplus for next year so we can invest in football development programmes in the future as we need to continually grow and create some reserves to ensure financial stability of the club.
The result does show that essentially all monies received go back into club activities and operating costs. We are once again indebted to our wonderful group of sponsors who continue to be very generous in their support of our club. Powerex, Liquid IT, Pak ‘n Save Petone, Mitre 10 MEGA, Sign Foundry, BP Railway Avenue and Bluestar are the major club sponsors. We are always looking for new signboard sponsors so please help us identify people who might be open to this. We have also focused on securing longer term sponsorship agreements in the current year which will allow more time to be spent on new initiatives in the coming year.
We are still heavily reliant on grant funding and although the amount received this year is up on the previous year it is due to the $68k received for the Kitchen upgrade, and the remaining operational grant funding for coaching and gear is down and becoming harder to secure. Our fundraising income was down from the previous year but the Bar continued to do well as club members where keen to support the club to help us come through the COVID-19 impact. We need all Club members to continue to support these important revenue streams in the future.
THANK YOU:
A massive thank you to everyone involved with the running of our club over the past 12 months. It has been a particularly challenging year and we have met these challengers full-on and got through it well. I look forward to the continued involvement and support of all of you again next season and we always welcome any additional support you could offer the Club in anyway.
7 | P a g e I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Graham Hickling for his huge contribution again this year to the Kitchen refurbishment project. Graham is a well deserved life member and has spent so many hours planning, Project Managing and helping with the building work, and well deserved the Capital Football Volunteer of the year award recognising his huge contribution to our club. He is now starting on the Clubroom cladding repair project.
I wish you all a happy and relaxed Summer break.
Matt Bliss Chairman
27 November 2020
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