PORTLAND Panthers have been paying close attention to developing the junior portion of their club in recent times, with the club having hosted a recently completed junior soccer tournament which has seen six teams battle it out at Friendly Society Reserve.

Organiser Les Horovitz said the competition was a fantastic innovation for the club, which elected to move the program to midweek, a departure from the previous Saturday morning Miniroos program.

“We went from having sometimes only six to eight kids there on a Saturday to 30-40 kids on a Thursday afternoon, it was a bit of a masterstroke by the committee I guess you could say,” he said.

“It’s really just opened the club up to a much larger group of people, we had three pitches going most nights with the kids playing in teams of six.

“It wasn’t ultra-competitive, but we did have a ladder and the kids knew what was going on and were trying to win.

“There’s a lot of competition for attention on Saturdays with kids, so making it a midweek after school thing I think was very successful.”

The club is planning to recommence the program on April 17 after a short break, with Horovitz saying he expects to the program to run in a similar format.

Panthers ready to make return to women’s competition

After a number of years on hiatus, Portland will be represented in women’s soccer once again in the 2024 South West Victorian Football Association (SWVFA) season, with the club having committed to fielding a side this year.

The Panthers have not fielded a women’s side since moving to the SWVFA after the COVID-19 pandemic, with recently appointed coach Zeke Hatten saying it’s high time that something changed.

“I think as a club we’ve let the women’s side of things down a bit, and we felt it was time to do something about it and get it back up and running,” Hatten said.

“As someone who has tried to play and manage at the same time even last year, it’s a very challenging thing to do, and as someone who’s own time playing is sort of coming to an end, I figured it was a chance to step up and take that responsibility so that the women can just go out there and focus on playing.”

Hatten admitted that numbers haven’t quite been up to what the club had been hoping for when it initially made the announcement, he maintains that he expects to field a side each and every week.

“The SWVFA only plays seven-a-side in the women’s competition, so obviously that takes the stress off a little bit in terms of numbers, but we’d still like to have a dozen or more suiting up for us,” he said.

“The key thing we want to get out of this season is more participation, some of the girls have said they want to compete for a premiership and win finals, and of course that’s always the end goal, but I think we do have to start from the ground up and build a strong core.”

Much is still up in the air regarding this season’s structure for the association as a whole, with Hatten saying they’re yet to receive confirmation regarding whether they’re being moved to Saturday games or staying with Sundays this season.

“It is a little bit frustrating, but I think we have to accept that everyone is doing the best they can with what they have to go on at the moment, so we’ll just wait and see and adapt to whatever happens.”