St Andrews-Footscray is hoping the 2025-26 Victorian Turf Cricket Association season will be the start of a new beginning.
It’s been a tough few years for the club, with its top side finishing bottom last season of the Evans-Clark Shield and being relegated.
But with a new president and new co-coaches, Mark Rhodes and Simon Krygger, the club is positive about the future and what it might bring.
President Thomas Stoneham said it was pretty exciting to see what was happening at the club.
“I’ve been vice-president for the last two years and I thought I would step up to the next level to help set the club up going forward,” he said.
“It’s a new era for the club. We’ve got two life members, two club legends taking on the coaching.
“Mark and Simon have played some high level cricket. They have good knowledge of the game and where we want to go as a club.”
Stoneham said it was an easy decision to appoint Rhodes and Krygger as coaches for this season with both wanting the club to succeed.
He said both already had the respect around the local community and the club having been part of the club for a long period of time.
“They are always winning to offer advice,” he said. “It was an easy choice to have them as coaches.”
Stoneham said while it was disappointing to drop down to division 5 for this season, they would look to use it as a chance to reset.
The side won just one game last season but were competitive in several other games. The season before it also finished bottom of division 4, but managed to avoid relegation.
“It has been a struggle getting that winning culture,” he said. “We’ve looked to recruit a few players and we want to be more competitive in division 5.
“Hopefully this will be a good stepping stone and we can get that winning culture back and more people around the club coming down and supporting us.
“Hopefully we can make finals and get back up to division 4 as soon as possible. We want to get and back up a division and even to division 3 to play at a higher level.”
Stoneham said they had already locked in an import from the United Kingdom, who is an opening bat.
He said they were pretty happy with the signing and felt he would be more than handy at this level.
Stoneham said while they want to build a winning culture, they want to ensure that they having a bit of fun with it as well.
