Thursday 17 December 2015

Have the Great Nomads found their home?

The big news of the week was the announcement of an in-principle agreement between Marrickville City Council and Sydney Olympic to re-develop parts of the Tempe Recreation Reserve on the southern end of Marrickville Council limits.

Obviously this is great news, but there is a long way to go and a lot of hard work to get through to get this over the line, hopefully the current board will be given every chance to get it done, as it is long overdue, and how ironic it would be, that it took a State League trapped Sydney Olympic to get it done.

It is the culmination of a long journey which began at Wentworth Park in Glebe in 1957. Since then, thousands of supporters have followed the team around Sydney, to the Sydney Sports Ground, Erskineville Oval, Pratten Park, St. George Stadium, Leichhardt Oval, SFS, Belmore Sports Ground, Shark Park, Kogarah Oval, and I have probably also missed a couple of venues along the way. We have also had a couple of cracks at a social club, the last of which was closed down 15 years ago at Hurlstone Park.

The future of the club would be secured if this project can be seen out through to its conclusion. I hope every Sydney Olympic Supporter, whether you still regularly attend matches today, did so 10 years, did so 20 years ago, or only ever attended a single match, sends their best wishes and hopes for a positive outcome in this endeavour.

Onto the playing side of things, all this Tempe stuff is connected to the lack of heavy investment in the First Grade Squad for 2016, the board look to be cutting back in a bid to fund the Tempe project. Which could be dangerous in terms of ladder position for next season. There is a bit of work to do in this regard as I believe we are short 2-3 quality players for next season.

2016 will also see us face South Melbourne for only the second time since 2004 and the first time since 2011, in a pre-season match for the “Bank of Sydney Cup”, Bank of Sydney happens to sponsor both clubs. The match is slated for Friday Night, February 5th, 7:30pm at Jubilee Oval, Kogarah. Before that we also have a pre-season hit-out penciled in against Parramatta Melita on the Sunday Afternoon, January 31st, 3:00pm at Melita Stadium, South Granville.

The final piece of news is the announcement that Howard Fondyke has been given the Captaincy for 2016. Fondyke missed the majority of 2015 with a season-ending injury suffered in the 2-2 draw away to A.P.I.A Leichhardt in Round 4 last season, which was a major blow to our season, best of luck to him we wish him all the best.

This will probably be the last blog until next year so Merry Christmas to everyone and have a safe and Happy New Year.