loris bertolacci

Green Gully Soccer

I have been very lucky to work at Green Gully since August 2006 under Ian Dobson who is a great coach and calls a spade a spade. It is a very professional club and gets criticized by many because it is in fact that, professional. It sent all its players to the AIS for a camp in February to expose the boys to an elite environment. Great stuff. This state league is a very tough competition with lots of very good players. And the more boys coming through because of the soccer boom means it becomes even tougher day by day as they mature. Given there are not many A League Clubs and they have small lists and notwithstanding some good players are overseas there are still heaps of quality ( AFL standard) soccer players floating around in this league given the large pool of soccer players in OZ have to play somewhere. Hopefully in time the standard of facilities improves because some are ok ( Bob Jane / Whittlesea and GGSC) but overall it is quite pathetic given the standing of soccer in OZ. We played at one ground and changed in small construction style rooms with one dirty plugged up toilet! A few clubs like Green Gully service the players very well , but in general the poor facilities and the lack of medical services and general backup has simply shocked me given the standard of players involved. The soccer and coaching and competition is great but the infrastructure is often archaic. The TAC system needs to examined closely also by Soccer because the pathways are all over the place for young players and the AFL know this in my opinion and thus are probably banking on this weakness in the soccer development pathways. If I said anything else I would be lying. The sport is booming and I love it. Now is the time to make it attractive to kids and parents by getting some of these things right. I saw the transtion from the Windy Hill / Moorabin days and only the “pie munchers” and “head butters” would want to go back to those days. I think! It would of course be tough to cut the ethnic roots of some of these clubs because that is why they exist but this second tier needs to head in a non ethnic and business based direction otherwise in my opinion it wont have broad community appeal at the senior level as distinct from the large numbers playing junior soccer. Hope it does because I am hooked now to the game.

July 21, 2007 - Posted by Loris Bertolacci | Soccer