Balmoral is through to FV state league 4 west after securing the championship and promotion in state league 5 west.
The club has finally broken through after four years of verging on promotion, since being relegated from state league 4 back in 2018.
The club took a fresh approach to its committee after being relegated with president Enver Malkic saying this was a full club effort and success.
“It’s been a long time coming,” he said.
“In 2019 missing out by a point and last year coming really close too. But no one ever gave up, we stuck to the plan, we kept being patient.
“Everyone put in the hard yards throughout the pre-season.
“Everyone played their own vital role as a collective to achieve what we’ve achieved. There hasn’t been one stand out player, everyone has done their own part to get to where we are.
“All the hard work eventually has paid off, finally.”
With a return to state league 4 now locked in for 2024, the club is excited to show what they can do playing at the higher level.
“It’s shaping up to be a very interesting year,” Malkic said.
“It looks like there’s going to be a lot more local derbies next season.
“At the end of the day that’s why you play football, you want those bigger games and it looks like we will be showing that next season.”
To help cope with the challenge of a higher grade, Malkic said the club will be looking to recruit but the finer details will be taken care of by his coaches.
“We will always be looking,” he said.
“The squad that we had this season was really powerful.
“With the squad we had, we went 15 and zero, and we still had five or six starting players that went overseas.
“We won’t be making the same mistake with the amount of players going overseas, especially when you’re challenging for the title, it’s almost impossible to replace five or six starters.
“But we’ll always be looking to add players to the squad, the coach is already looking at the market so we’ll see how we go.”
After playing their final game for the regular season over the weekend Malkic said before the game that they still went out to get the three points and take good form into the finals, where an overall state league 5 champion will be determined.
“It is a dead rubber, however, we’re still out there for the win,” he said.
“We want to head into finals full of confidence.”
Harper Sercombe
