FOOTBALL Mid North Coast chairman Mike Parsons has labelled the Newcastle Jets upcoming visit to the area as a “momentous occasion” for football.
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The Hyundai A-League club are set to travel north and play a trial match against the best players from the FMNC Premier League competition on August 15.
Two local representative sides will take to the field for a half each at Regional Stadium with Matt Baker to coach the northern representative side.
That side will be made up of players from Port Macquarie, Camden Haven, Kempsey and Wauchope.
Jonathan Newman will take charge of the southern representative side which will be made up of players from Forster, Tuncurry and Taree.
“The logic is to give as many (local) players as we can the opportunity where they will be fresh so they will be able to give the Jets a reasonable test for their preparations for the A-League,” Parsons said.
“It’s a massive opportunity to not only expose our game to a wider community but internally to our own football family and give them a shot in the arm that we’re not just some back water who just play Saturday park football.
“It will give our local players an enormous experience for something they normally wouldn’t be able to get because we usually don’t have representative senior teams.”
The logic is to give as many (local) players as we can the opportunity where they will be fresh so they will be able to give the Jets a reasonable test for their preparations for the A-League.
- Football Mid North Coast chairman Mike Parsons
The Jets will also visit Forster the day before they head to Port Macquarie.
When in Port Macquarie they will visit schools, host coaching clinics and then play the trial match with kick-off expected to be around 6.30pm.
Parsons said it was pleasing to see the Jets embrace a community outside of the Hunter after years of trying to connect with the Mid-North Coast.
“The Jets are looking to expand their supporter base out to the rural areas which is something they need to do,” he said.
The FMNC chairman put it down to the hard work of Jets chief executive Lawrie McKinna.
“Lawrie is a guy that understands grassroots football and it is something he is passionate about,” Parsons said.
“So many of our players support English Premier League clubs and Serie A clubs and the Spanish La Liga and they don’t seem to wear the club colours of the Jets who are our nearest home club.
(Jets chief executive) Lawrie (McKinna) is a guy that understands grassroots football and it is something he is passionate about.
- Mike Parsons
“As far as the Jets go it’s all kudos to them for coming on board with this.
“We’ll be driving the concept of these visits annually as hard as we can for the future.”
Parsons said FMNC saw the visit as an investment for their stakeholders.
“We believe it’s investing in our football community by having these school clinics and these school visits,” he said.
