Tara Murray
Metropolitan and country football clubs have welcomed changes to crowd restrictions at local football matches.
Under the original restrictions, club’s expecting to have crowds of more than 1000 people had to apply for permission to host a larger crowd and secure public health approval.
The new rules, announced last week, have lifted the limit to 5000 fans before clubs need to seek approval.
Some local football kicks off on Good Friday, with big crowds expected to flock to games, especially with local competitions having not played since 2019.
In the Essendon District Football League, three matches are expected to attract big crowds on Good Friday.
Keilor will host Strathmore in the premier division, Hillside takes on Taylors Lakes in division 1, while Keilor Park will host Coburg Districts, in the first division 2 Good Friday match.
Hillside president Sebastian Buccheri said while they welcomed the decision to up the crowd limit, it would have been good to know a couple of weeks ago before they put in an application.
“It’s pretty much two weeks too late,” he said.
“We spent a whole Friday doing the 21 page document. We would have loved to have had the information then.
“It would have saved a whole of time and hurt.”
Mr Buccheri said the size of the crowd would depend on the weather. Last time they hosted Taylors Lakes in the annual Good Friday game they had nearly 2000 people attend.
He said the Keilor and Strathmore game attracted an even bigger crowd.
“It’s the first competitive football game for points and people will be wanting to come to a local game of football,” he said.
“We’ve looking forward to having footy back.”
Mr Buccheri said trying to manage who attended the game would have been difficult, with the ground not fenced.
AFL Victoria head Brad Scott said it was a really positive development for community football.
“With this latest development, community footy will be as close as possible to ‘back to normal’ when the season starts, which is really exciting.
“It will be great to see big crowds at community football matches while kids will be high-fiving and can have parents, grandparents and family watching their junior footy games.
“These are all parts of community football that Victorians love, and it’s fantastic to have the season nearly here after the year we had.”
