WITH three weekends of football completed, the 2018 EDFL season has already provided many great highlights and exciting matches.
All evidence to date shows that stand-alone Friday matches early in the season are very popular with the EDFL community.
Keilor and Strathmore in Strathmore Community Bank Premier Division, and Hillside and Taylors Lakes in Essendon Ford Division 1 have established big followings for their traditional Good Friday games.
In addition, this year Keilor and Strathmore successfully staged an EDFL Women’s match following the senior men.
In the EDFL Women’s competition the following Friday night, Aberfeldie hosted Sunbury Kangaroos and Burnside Heights hosted Hillside, and then Pascoe Vale travelled to Roxburgh Park for a Friday night match.
Essendon Ford Division 1 commenced with a Friday night game which saw well over 2000 people at Jacana Reserve to see the Jaguars unfurl their premiership flag against Westmeadows.
In addition to those at the ground, over 5,500 viewers watched the game using the live-stream through the EDFL Facebook page.
The production was very good and this was a very encouraging result for the clubs and the EDFL.
Post-match there have more than 2000 further viewings.
A highlight for me from the 2018 season has been EDFL Women’s, where we have 13 teams competing.
The excitement that comes with a new competition is very apparent from the players, coaches, club and support volunteers and spectators.
From an EDFL perspective, the composition of teams in EDFL Women’s provides a broad cross section of our League.
Looking at the EDFL Women’s teams through a lens of our senior men’s competition shows a diversity of clubs:
- five EDFL Women’s teams from clubs in Strathmore Community Bank Premier Division
- three EDFL Women’s teams from clubs in Essendon Ford Division 1
- three EDFL Women’s teams from clubs in Strathmore Community Bank Division 2
- two clubs who do not have senior men’s teams playing in the EDFL
It is also encouraging to see that the 13 clubs cover the full geographic footprint of our EDFL competition, and includes long-term, well-established clubs, and our newer clubs.
Good luck for the weekend.
