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Junior Football kicks off Anzac Weekend 2020

Thursday, January 30, 2020 - 4:26 PM

The 2020 WA Football Junior Season will kick off over the Anzac Day weekend, across junior football leagues with NAB Auskick kicking off the weekend of 2nd/3rd May. 

The Northern Conference Junior Football Leagues have scheduled Round 1 of the Junior & Youth Girls season for Friday 24th April and the Sunday competitions for Sunday 26th April 2020 - falling in line with the rest of the WA Metropolitan Football Leagues. 

The WA Football Commission (WAFC) work closely with Junior Clubs who have requested the leagues (where possible) fixture 15 week football seasons providing maximum opportunitu to play football within the football season. In 2020 a 15-week football season has been fixtured with an additional finals series in the youth age competitions. 

The WAFC notified clubs in late November/ Early December 2019 of the 2020 season start dates, allowing almost 5 months’ notice of the 2020 season dates, with the aim to give local football families as much notice as possible when planning holidays. 

When fixturing and scheduling matches the WA Football Commission review a range of factors including:

  • Club requests
  • Oval availability (many local councils do not allow matches to be played before 10 April each year), allowing ground maintenance following the Summer sport season. 
  • School Holidays
  • Public Holidays 
  • PSA Boarders weekends (Private Schools) catering for regionally located players

In 2020 fixturing and scheduling has proven difficult with:

  • Easter and Anzac Public Holidays falling over the same school holiday break
  • Anzac weekend falling on a weekend - resulting in a Monday public holiday for the first time in 4 years

The WAFC also works to standardise football fixtures across the Metropolitan area with all junior football leagues starting, conducting byes and playing finals over the same weekends. 

The WAFC understand the importance of Round 1 of the Junior Football League fixture as teams come together and hit the field for their first game of football for the season. Whilst we understand the difficulties some families will have with Round 1 scheduled for the Anzac weekend; we are confident that Round 1 will retain its importance, profile and significance to junior teams.

Whilst we acknowledge the difficult position the 2020 season start date will place on families with pre-scheduled holiday arrangements, the planning for season 2020 has been undertaken with the best interest of the competition and its players. 

We wish all teams the best of luck for season 2020 and look forward to working with junior clubs as they nominate teams over coming weeks and begin preparing for the season ahead. 

Andrew Ridley - Community Development Manager