Deep into pre-season and the news came through that the West Ryde Rovers Over 45s had been placed in division one for the 2024 season. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back. After years of bowing to the local association, North West Sydney Football, playing in divisions that were no way suitable for our skill and age level, enduring whole seasons chasing draws and hoping to avoid annihilation, the time had come to make a stand. It’s over and out for the 2024 season, and this long-standing team of fifty-somethings who started ten years ago in the second division of over 35s has pulled up stumps, so close to the first weekend of the season.
There are so many questions. This team made its debut in over 45s last season when it finally dawned on some of us that we had missed the boat to be a young 45s player by five years. Being a team with a sprinkling of talent, but an ethos for sticking together as mates and enjoying what’s left of the twilight years of our footballing ‘careers’, we had finally seen the light and decided to move to pastures new and enjoy football that was more appropriate to our physical fitness. Of course we were put straight into Division 1, a league that was billed as Division 1 and 2 combined, which would split into two once the teams had played each other once. We’d suck that up for a season at most.
That season was farcical, as is described in an earlier post here, with teams trying to throw games to avoid being in the top half of the division to avoid another round of thumping defeats. Absolute anti-football and a sad state of affairs from teams of grown men, but a pitiful symptom of the rules in place. However, the desire to have an enjoyable season that doesn’t end in weekly towellings, and some urgent pleas from all teams to the association finally saw sense prevail and the teams of trophy hunters were left to play amongst themselves for silverware as the rest of the also-rans in the division got to play competitive games for the rest of the season.
The heavy hand of those in charge is nothing new either. Even in our second season as a team, finishing in fourth place in over 35 division 2 in a season shortened by multiple washed out weekends, we were forced into division 1, even when we had only a handful of players registered. Some scratching around for players and we scraped together enough talent to be competitive, but it was only with many players playing two games on a Saturday for their lower league team and coming to help out in division 1. The scenario was repeated multiple times over the years, our nomination for a division only once being accepted, although by then we were aiming so low that the Covid-ravaged 2021 season ended up being a little easy.
Fast forward to the start of 2024 and our team had already lost a number of its key players following last season’s debacle, so much so that the remainder of the team joined the Division 3 team who were themselves in disarray. We played our pre-season games in the expectation to be playing Over 45 division 3, even when the draft gradings came out. Surely they’d see the age of our team, and last season’s results and put us somewhere more appropriate. But no. Division 1 or nothing. As usual non-negotiable.
So, the inevitable has happened. There’s no room at the inn. The association don’t want to make room in a lower division, because no one else wants to play in division one, and even the offer of dropping back down to the Over 35s has been thrown out. All of our club’s teams are full, and we now find ourselves in limbo. We’re not playing in division one. We don’t enjoy it. It’s not what we’re looking for at this stage of our lives, and we’ve been clear on that from the start.
Farewell West Ryde Rovers. The club I represented for a season in the Super League, the club where my kids started their football journeys, a club where I’ve coached, managed, done canteen and served on the committee. It is with a heavy heart as I look over Meadowbank Park from my window that this fantastic journey has come to an end.
Yours, in football, Texi.