Liquid IT Petone vs Wairarapa United Central League 2020 | 3pm, Saturday September 5 | Memorial Park Reserves vs Victoria Uni Reserves (Men) Capital 2 | 1pm, Saturday September 5 | Memorial Park Proudly supporting Petone FC liquidit.nz Chairman’s Corner elcome to Wairarapa United playing our Liquid IT Petone Men’s First Team Wtoday and of course a big welcome to all of our loyal supporters and opposition supporters. Our Men’s First Team has not had results go their way for a few weeks but the lads are committed to working hard as a squad to rectify this in the remaining six games of the season. We are all with you and believe you can dig deep and get the required results – COYB. Our Powerex Petone Women’s First Team finish the season with two away games in the W-League – against Karori today and Wairarapa next week – followed two days later on September 14 against Wairarapa again in the Kelly Cup semifinal at Maidstone Park. Good luck to them and if you can make it to Upper Hutt for the cup game please do and support them with lots of noise. Our Women’s Reserve Team are tracking well in the next division down, the Premier League. A great achievement for the club to have women’s teams doing well in the two top leagues. With our U18 Girls tracking really well too, and a lot of junior girls teams in the club, Remaining Powerex the future is looking good for our Petone Women’s women’s programme. First Team Fixtures Our Men’s Reserve Team are six points In this edition we have deviated on top of Capital 2 with four games from this season’s practice of to play – so closing in on winning the featuring the next home fixture league in the next couple of weeks of our Women’s Firsts on the hopefully. We will be watching the cover of the programme as results in Wellington 3 as our Fourth well as both their and their Team (The Untouchables) are also opponents’ squad lists in the close to winning their league, but they middle section. need a win today and Olympic to have lost to Vic Uni Beavers earlier in the This is due to the team not day – good luck to those lads. having any remaining home league matches scheduled. Our TDP Programme teams have had some mixed results but we are However, should our Women’s achieving our goals on delivering a Firsts prevail in the semifinal of programme that develops our players’ the Kelly Cup, then they would feature again at Memorial Park in skills even though results are not the final on Sunday September fantastic. Our U17 Team has some 20 at 1pm. talented players but as many play for our Reserve Team it has resulted in no wins for them yet. Our U15 Team have had some good results recently and are sitting in fifth spot and our U13 Team are going really well sitting second on the table. We will continue to build this programme which is the backbone for the future of our club. We have a busy social calendar coming up which has been compressed due to COVID-19 delays (all of club welcome to all events): Sept 12 – Junior Club quiz night Sept 19 – Old Timers’ Day Sept 26 – Women’s Senior Teams’ bingo night Oct 3 – Men’s First Team horsie night Oct 17 – senior prizegiving Let’s hope there are no more delays and we can hold these events. REMEMBER – PLEASE SUPPORT OUR CLUB SPONSORS! Good luck everybody – play hard and fair for your club and team this weekend. Matt Bliss Chairman [email protected] Blue Star Wellington 33 Jackson Street Petone PO Box 38 190 Wellington New Zealand 5045 Tel: +64 4 569 3519 Fax: +64 4 568 6356 www.bluestar.co.nz Coach’s Comment – Men’s First Team ack in Blue! I would like to thank everybody involved at the club for giving Bme the opportunity to be the coach of the Men’s First Team. Petone FC was where I first started playing football as a junior in 1983 and was also the club where I made my senior debut as an 18-year-old in the 1994 Winfield Superclub competition (12-team Central League). This club is special to me and is close to my heart, with Petone being the place I grew up. I am honoured and privileged to be back at the club and to be entrusted with such an important position. As well as having a great passion for football, one of the key attractions to getting back into coaching was the people that I will be working with. Having a coaching team that is all working together for the betterment of the club and the players was crucial to this. Having Paul “Stick” Whitmarsh back coaching is absolutely huge for the club moving forward. Paul and I have played together for the First Team and first coached together back in 1996 at Junior Regional League grade. We both had a lot more hair flowing back then!!! Our footballing philosophies are aligned and I know that Paul’s great experience with the current group and hard work and fantastic achievement in getting promotion last year will go a long way to helping achieve our goals in the remainder of the season. Another key member of our coaching team is Ben “Fiddy” Feld. Ben has done a great job with the Reserves this season, who are on track to gain promotion into Capital 1 next year. Ben has great experience, having also played at the highest level. That experience will only benefit the next generation of young players coming through. I would like to personally give a special mention to my football friend and club legend, Dutchman Paul “Ollie” Olsthoorn. Paul was one of my Petone idols when Petone FC Programme Info editor/designer – Iain MacIntyre (MacIntyre Public Relations Ltd) <[email protected]>, 021 99 10 16 printer – Blue Star, c/o Mark Allen <[email protected]> photographaphy – largely courtesy of Jeff Bell <[email protected]> and Angela Eglington <[email protected]> thanks also to club stallwarts Ray Bell, Barry Pickering and Matt Bliss as well as our other numerous contributors he played First Team in the ‘80s and was one of the best players I played with in a Petone shirt in the ‘90s. Our weekly footy phone calls over the last decade have been great, where Paul has always kept me well informed about the club he so-dearly loves. Paul’s positive energy and enthusiasm about the club was instrumental in helping me make my decision to come back to coaching a lot easier. Thanks Ollie. A lot has happened in 2020 both globally and domestically with the impact of COVID-19. Football clubs have faced different challenges and have been affected in different ways. Building resilience in the face of adversity and setting small targets in order to achieve ultimate goals is so Besim representing Petone Firsts at important. Our goal has been clear Memorial Park against WDU in 1994 from the outset – maintaining our Central League status. This will allow us to reset the foundation to build on in the next two seasons. We have put together a plan to build an environment where players will enjoy their football and continue to develop which has always been the “Petone way”. In the last three weeks players across the board have been working extremely hard – showing the attitude, application and high standards required to get to the next level. A good work ethic and positive attitude are the tonics needed so that all of the effort in training can turn into results on matchday weekends. I look forward to seeing you all during the course of the remainder of the season – six matches. Hopefully we also get to see many of you during the U19s’ campaign at the Youth Championships in Napier in late October. Bleed and breathe Blue! Besim Balicevac Liquid IT Petone Men’s First Team coach Coach’s Comment – Men’s Reserve Team hen I took on the role of Men’s Reserve Team coach the first thing I Wwanted to do was create an environment in which the players could perform to their maximum potential, learn as much as they could about the game of football and, most of all, have fun doing it. I was quite firm on making the Reserve Team a place where the players/coaches were honest, hardworking, confident and trusting of one another. We have for the first time in my time at the club created our own team culture and environment, that will continue to grow as the seasons go on. We lost the first game of the season after holding the lead for the majority of the match. Since then the lads have put everything they have into learning the art of defending a lead, this is one of the reasons we have done so well this season. The attitude of the players has been second to none – the willingness to drop down and play for the Third Team when required, or only get a few minutes off the bench, has meant we have such great depth. We have had three players move up and make their Central League debuts so far this season – as a group they should be so proud of themselves for supporting each other with opportunities like that. We have also been able to provide a positive football environment for First Team players to play in when returning from injury or requiring minutes to keep their fitness levels up when stuck in that fringe-player role.