Tara Murray
Footscray United Rangers are hoping the work of the past few years has paid off and they will get an opportunity at the FV state league 5 west competition next year.
After having a women’s state league side this season, the Rangers met with Football Victoria last week to put forward their case for their men’s program.
Rangers president Nathan McLean said before the meeting with FV it was an exciting time for the club.
The last time a Footscray team was in the football ranking period was more than 35 years ago.
“Prior to 2017, we played for about five years as a group and every year we said we would like to start our own club,” he said.
‘In 2017 we joined the now-defunct Victoria Soccer Competition. Then in 2022 we joined FV with a metropolitan team.
“We always had the ambition from the start to have a state league team and be part of the whole pyramid.”
While there were a tough few years during Covid, the club now has five senior teams, including one women’s, and 15 junior sides.
“We started off with a single men’s team just so people could come together and play soccer,” he said.
“We adopted the club motto that football is for everyone and we’ve got a lot of people playing for the first time ever.
“We have girls, refugees, kids with disabilities. For a lot of them it’s the first time they’ve been in a team environment.”
McLean said they have a different motto than a lot of clubs and want to make it affordable for everyone.
He said they have a program which allows players from a refugee background to play for free.
McLean said one of the major things that they believed would work in their favour was the work the club had done to become a Football Australia 2 star club changer.
The club was one of the first to achieve that which looks at the work club’s do with female soccer.
Achille Mellini has been appointed the clubs men’s coach bringing a range of experience including coaching with the Bulleen Lions, Brunswick Zebras, Altona City and most recently with the Truganina Hornets.
McLean said it had been fun getting to know him so far and they were keen to see what they could do once the season started.
The Rangers are searching for both men’s and women’s players for next season. McLean said they already had 140 expressions of interest for the men’s side.
