First things first, of course. We are part of Balmain Soccer Club and all prospective players for this year need to register with the club. If you played last year, this will require the filling in of a registration form and the handing over of $176 (if you think this is pricey, check out some other club fees: $250+ is not uncommon). If you did not play last for us last year, you will also need to provide two passport-sized photos and a photocopy of some photo ID (eg driver's licence, passport).

The club is accepting registrations at Callan Park (see map under Venues on our website) on Wednesday 5 Feb (today) from 6pm-8pm and Saturday 8 and Sunday 9 Feb from 10am-2pm. If you are a current player and intend to register at one of these sessions, contact me (Ricky, tall bloke, too old but he runs the website, sooo ... - email me or phone me on 0408 210 127) and I'll give you your ID number. If you can't make one of these sessions, it is important you let me know ASAP. It should be possible to register later but it would be wise to let the club know.

Once we have players registered with the club, we can submit team registrations, where players are listed in groups of at least nine and up to 16 - with a Manager - and are then graded by the club. Last year, we had teams in Division 3 First Grade (unbeaten minor Premiers, came to grief in the Finals), Division 3 Reserves (3rd after home and away, a win by forfeit and a loss in the Finals) and Division 4 Reserves (2nd after home and away, defeated by minor Premiers in Grand Final). This year, we could aim for teams in Division 2 First Grade and Reserves, and Division 3 First Grade and Reserves - with a fallback position of Division 3 and Division 4 respectively.

We want to have a Manager for each team. This could be a Player/Manager or a non-playing Manager. A Firsts player could Manage a Reserves team and vice versa. We would be seeking to retain the format whereby the Firsts and Reserves teams are regarded as squads, with players selected to play up or down as appropriate, within the rules of the Association.

Formal training has not yet commenced, but will do so soon. We will be having a kick around on Saturday mornings from 10am-12noon at Wentworth Park in Glebe (see Venues on the website), at least until we can get on to our regular training ground. I'm in favour of retaining Cohen Park (see Venues etc) on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 7pm-9pm. If you have other preferences, let me know (other days, times or venues).

If you want to be taken off the email list of players or newsletter recipients, let me know. The newsletter will start appearing regularly again from now on, while key messages for players only will be sent to the players email distribution list. Please be aware that some players access these emails at work, where their employers may frown on (or electronically ban) messages with offensive content and/or large or suspect attachments. Once player lists are complete, contact details will be made available and it may be wiser to restrict the more amusing messages to a personally compiled email list rather than the official Rovers list. End of wowser-like disclaimer.

On a personal note, I will be restricting my involvement with Balmain Rovers somewhat this year to allow more time for family commitments. I believe this is feasible for me, and hopefully also for some of you who are also starting families. If we're sensible about it, we should be able to juggle the two.

I will post general info to the website soon about what it means and what it takes to play for Balmain Rovers, as well as occasional notices in between newsletters and email announcements. Below, you'll find some items that have come to my attention over the past few weeks, which may be of more or less practical interest to you. Look forward to seeing you all soon.

Negotiations have yet to be entered into with our previous sponsor, the Annandale Hotel, but I'm hopeful we can continue and expand on our relationship with Dan & Matt at the Anno. If all goes well, we will probably have a few sessions at the pub before the season starts to reacquaint ourselves with each ther. In the meantime, for a full rundown of happenings at the Annandale, click on the image below -

Regards

Football-forums.co.uk team http://www.football-forums.co.uk

Dear friends, happy 2003 from Argentina

My name is Christian Lovrincevich and I am the head coach of Argentinean Soccer services Company ,”ARGENTINA 10 INTERNATIONAL SOCCER CENTER”. Our main effort is to promote soccer camps overseas and soccer tours to Argentina. Our company is dedicated to the development of soccer worldwide.

ARGENTINA 10 SOCCER CAMP are now available for clinics or mini camps year round in your country. ARGENTINA 10 will provide members of our professional coaching staff to work with the player and coaches in your club, school or league.

We are currently organizing a Coaches Soccer Clinics, which will take place in Buenos Aires on March 21th 2003. At same time in Argentina, I am the Head Coach of Youth Soccer at “ARGENTINOS JUNIORS CLUB” . This professional soccer club has formed excellent players such as, Diego Maradona, Fernando Redondo (Milan - Italy), Juan Riquelme (Barcelona - Spain), Esteban Cambiasso (Real Madrid – Spain) , Juan Sorin (Lazio - Italy), Diego Placente (Bayer - Germany), Gancedo (Osasuna - Spain), Coloccini (Atletico Madrid – Spain) among others.

I am very interested in exchanging information with you in order to promote our services in your country. Also I would like to know about soccer coaches, international soccer tournaments, and youth soccer programs.

If you are interested, please contact me.
Web site : www.soccercenter.com.ar
E-mail: argentina10@soccercenter.com.ar

You are invited to participate in the 3rd annual Beach Soccer Championships at South West Rocks on the 22nd and 23rd February 2003. Divisions include Open Mens and O35's with total prize money of $5000. For full information and entry form, please go to our website www.midcoast.com.au/~rangers.

Thank You
Mark Bradney
Macleay Valley Rangers SC

FOOTBALLCRESTS.COM is a unique non-profit making website based in England that looks at the meaning and history of football (soccer) club crests & badges from around the world. We are currently attempting to contact as many clubs as possible to offer them a totally free page on the site (which will include a direct weblink to your own official club site).

We would now like to feature your clubs's crest. To do this all we need from you is the following:

1) A crest to use. Preferably this should be in electronic format (JPEG / TIFF / GIF / BMP) attached to an email and suitable for use at 200x200 pixels at 72 dpi. If this is not possible, however, we can provide you with a postal address to send a printed crest that we can scan.

2) Your written permission on behalf of the club that we can display your crest on FOOTBALLCRESTS.COM (an official email reply would be fine).

3) Some information relating to the crest, its meaning and history (preferably around 250 words - but any information at all is better than none).

4) Please also include the following information so that we can complete a standard FOOTBALLCRESTS.COM page: (i) The date the crest was created/first used, (ii) the year your club was formed, (iii) your club colours, (iv) the full name and division your first team currently plays in, and (v) the name of your home stadium.

If you get the chance, before sending your information, please do visit www.footballcrests.com and take a look at the pages of a few other clubs (they vary in length considerably depending on the amount of information we have about the crests) then you will see the type of information we are looking for.

We hope to hear back from you soon!

Best wishes,

Chris Munns
Webmaster
www.footballcrests.com

DO YOU LOVE SOCCER?

Do you want your Soccer Club to have access to the Premier Soccer Brands in Teamwear & Equipment both in Australia and in Europe? Visit our web-site, www.dixonsports.com.au for the most comprehensive range of Soccer Teamwear & Equipment available on the net. Soccer Strips to Strapping Tape, Club Polo Shirts to Training Aids – have a look and be impressed. We have a Shopping Section so that you can even order via E-Commerce.

Looking for a little fun?

Try and “Bend it like Baggio”, the Roberto Baggio free-kick specialist (very addictive), or try your hand at being a Manager in the English Premier League, where making transfers & substitutions could be crucial to your season.

Dear Soccer Friends,

I am a great soccer fan and as a collector of soccer pins of all countries of the world I would be very grateful and proud for sending me please the metal lapel pin (the metal lapel badge) of the Balmain Rovers.

Thank you very much in advance and good luck to your club and to all his members!

Best greetings from Europe and Merry Christmas!

Gottfried Balzli
Jupiterstr. 7/1352
CH - 3015 Berne
Switzerland

This is just one of about 20 requests for a Balmain Rovers pin or badge - maybe we should get one