Through much deliberation the WYFNC has decided not to appeal the decision made by the BFNL to exclude us from the 2026 season, as the wellbeing of our young members and families are paramount during this period. Although this decision has seen some of our Warriors walk away from sport completely, we have seen most of our footballers now transferred to clubs of their choosing (despite the BFNLs effort to send them to a particular club). We wish our footballers all the best on this journey and there will be many Woady warriors cheering you on from the side lines! This decision was not made lightly as we felt we were backed into a corner, even by appealing the decision is still ultimately left to the very board who excluded us and with a month until the season started, it was unlikely a decision would be made.
Netball Victoria announced today they will deliver a stand alone netball competition in Ballarat at Selkirk Stadium offering our netballers opportunity to continue to play Sundays. The Ballarat Netball association has also offered our netballers a place in their Saturday competition, thank you to both these associations for supporting us to get our girls back on the court!
We would like it known that statements made by the BFNL are incorrect-
We did in fact have football teams (they stated we had none). We had strong numbers in the Under 8s, 10s & 12s, acknowledging our struggle to field a 14s side. We were upfront and honest, even offered a solution that we combine the 14s with another struggling club just so the kids could play.
We also had coaches for our football teams (stated by the BFNL we didn’t)
BFNL stated we had no netball teams, considering registrations hadn’t opened no club officially had netball teams! But we had teams in under 9s, 11s, 13s, 15s & 17s ready to go!
The BFNL did not offer extensive support of the WYFNC, our club was supported by its members, families, volunteers, coaches, committee, sponsors and community members.
The support offered by AFL Goldfields was nothing more than the position that they are employed to do.
The disrespect of the BFNL informing the other clubs of their decision before we could tell our families knowing we had an all club meeting scheduled which they declined to attend. Which resulted in families getting phone calls from a BFNL BOARD MEMBER to join the club he is affiliated with!
The BFNL Board did not support our netballers in finding a new competition, our concerns, suggestions, all things netball related were dismissed. Our netball coordinator secured these girls a future.
We hope this has highlighted the flawed system of the BFNL and the misogynistic views that netball doesn’t matter. That the sole focus of the BFNL is financial gain, not the wellbeing of young people and having a child centred approach in sports!
We wish our Warriors all the best for their future and you will go down in history as the little country club, with even bigger hearts!