It has been a month since our season ended
disappointingly in Adelaide at the Semi-Final stage of the NPL National Finals
Series. We will just have to make do with the 2018 NSW NPL Minor
Premiership-Championship Double.
And now, we settle in for one hell of a long and boring off-season.
Looking ahead at 2019, being Defending Champions next season will certainly bring
its own difficulties and challenges. Every season Sydney Olympic is the hunted,
no matter who, when and where we are playing, but that will be ratcheted up big
time next year, given we will be the Defending Champions.
With that fact in mind, our players will be and already have been, the target
of other clubs. Money and all sorts of other promises will be thrown at them,
to lure them away from Belmore.
When it comes to recruitment, currently it is all fairly quiet on that front. There
are a few rumours and whispers floating around about the possible return to
Sydney Olympic of Mitchell Stamatellis, Michael Gaitatzis and others, but nothing
has been announced by the Club as of yet, so that is merely wishful thinking
for now.
On the departures side of things, it was made public last week, that Max
Burgess had left the Club and has decided to take up an offer to play in the
a-league with the Wellington Phoenix for the upcoming season. He was
outstanding for us in 2018 and fully deserves this opportunity, so good luck to
him.
But with our main concern here obviously being Sydney Olympic, the loss of Max
Burgess is a heavy blow and will have a huge impact on our ability to defend
our Title. It will be a very difficult task to try and replace him.
Onto the Tempe Reserve redevelopment, it is as you were in regards to that issue,
with Sydney Olympic and the Inner-West Council remaining locked in negotiations
over the future of the project. It’s all pretty hush-hush at the moment, but we
should definitely know come the end of 2018 or by early 2019, which way it
goes.
Finally, very sad news this month was the passing of ever-present supporter Steve
Argyros, if you didn’t know him, you definitely heard him every week. Going to
matches next year and not hearing Big Steve is going to take some getting used
to. Condolences to his family and friends.
