LONG time Portland Football Netball Cricket Club clubman Andrew Neve has taken on the role of president at the club for 2024 and 2025, with his appointment made official at Tuesday afternoon’s Annual General Meeting.

Neve takes over from previous president Troy Bannam, who served in the role for the past six years and was recently inducted as a life member of the club.

Neve said it’s an honour to take over the role from someone who he describes as his “best mate.”

“Troy has done an incredible job over many years of service to the club, sometimes it can be hard work, and often a thankless job, and it’s really a credit to him the way he’s stuck at it all these years.”

While this will be the first time Neve has officially held the role, he has served as vice-president and in doing so stepped up into presidential duties when required.

“In the past when Troy or (past president) Michael Carr weren’t around I’d step up and take on some of the duties.

“It’s been in the back of my mind for a few years now that I might want to consider taking it on, and once Troy decided to step down there weren’t many names coming forward, so I figured I’d take it on.

“My son (Zayde) is playing under-10s next year so I’m going to be around the club for the next 10 years or so at least… don’t know if I’ll be president the whole time but we’ll wait and see.”

Neve’s move from vice-president to president and Tony Jackson’s decision to step down left a dual vacancy in the vice-presidency roles, with Craig Samson and Harry Kerr stepping up to fill those gaps.

In addition, the secretary role which had been filled by Lucy Telfer has been taken on by Selwyn Jones, with Neve saying all parties will provide a valuable service to the club.

“First of all, I want to thank Tony and Lucy for their contributions across their time in the role, I’ve had the great privilege to work with them,” he said.

“Selwyn is a great person to have around the club, his connections within local football are incredible, he’ll certainly bring stuff to my attention that I hadn’t been aware of before which will be fantastic.

“It’s great to see two new faces stepping up to the vice-president positions, especially with Harry being on the younger side, it holds the club in really good stead for the future.

“I do shift work so there’s going to be times when I’m not available on match days so it’s important that we have committed people in those roles ready to step up when needed.

“Hopefully they’ll enjoy their time in the roles and be inspired to take on the top job when my time comes to move on.”

Neve said that, aside from a pair of netball finalists last season, the results on field and on court hadn’t been where the club wants them to be, but that he believes they’re building towards future success.

“We’ve got two new young coaches in Lochie (Huppatz) and Laura (Kelly) taking on the senior football and Open netball coaching, I think that should be really exciting for the club and its future,” Neve said.

“They’ve been hard at work pursuing recruits, we haven’t had heaps of success in signing big names, but even if it doesn’t come about, I think we’ve got a really strong crop of juniors coming through who I’m excited about seeing what they can do.”

Financially, Neve said the club is in good shape, with the focus being on reinvesting what income they’re able to take in back into their various programs.

“We recently purchased a bus which will be a great help in helping to get people to and from games, and maybe offers that little extra incentive to come and play now that’s taken care of,” he said.

“Obviously like any other business there are ups and downs, but I think on the whole we’re doing well, and we’ve been lucky to receive funding from the likes of Dulux along with our numerous other sponsors.

“Looking further ahead our goal is to be expanding the size of our facilities and to do a few other things with the place to make sure Hanlon Park remains a top-class facility in the region.”

The other six committee members have remained in their respective positions, with Jenny Porter remaining as treasurer, Damien Bell (senior football representative), Charley Samson (netball), Will Oakley (cricket), Vaughan Hockley (junior football), Jeremy Reynolds (women’s football) and Brianna Malcolm (social).