Merger of football clubs is a positive move

Two Tauranga football clubs with a shared history have merged to form a stronger unit for the future.

Blue Rovers Junior Football Club and Tauranga Old Blues signed a Memorandum of Understanding between the clubs on Wednesday at Pemberton Park, home of Blue Rovers.

The landmark decision aligns the junior age group strength of Blue Rovers with the adult players of Tauranga Old Blues, based at Wharepai Domain.

"This is an incredibly important move for us. We need to establish ourselves with a proper base to play from and also need the support and help of a junior club," Tauranga Old Blues president Pete Saunders said.

"Senior players move from club to club, from season to season. We have got a hard core group of players but everybody gets older and people move on.

"I honestly think if we hadn't made this move there may not have been an Old Blues club in a few years' time."

Blue Rovers president Theo Ursum is equally happy with the merger.

"For us starting at the age of four, we cater for the kids up to 14 and 15 and then you see some loss of players going to college, so we can't provide a pathway all the way to playing for seniors," he said.

"So we are happy to work with Old Blues providing a pathway from when they start playing football all the way to being a senior. It is a great way for us to keep the players at the club but also for the all the players to become coaches for the younger kids."

Ursum says no decision has yet been made on a new name for the merger.

"We will take small steps first. We had a good feeling about saying yes to Old Blues. We have a family package at Blue Rovers like they do which is inclusive of all players, whether they are social or one of the top players.

"We also bought Meredith Hall recently and are upgrading the hall. It is just another way for us to have other users of these awesome facilities, with the changing rooms downstairs and make upstairs a function room where we can have some social events as well."

It has been a very amicable step the two clubs have taken, Saunders says.

"A number of our players have got children playing for Blue Rovers so it is great to think they could start off at four or five years of age and go right through to first team senior football and follow in the footsteps of their fathers and mothers.

"Old Blues originally came out of Blue Rovers and I don't know why they ever moved away so it seems like we have come full circle again."

WaiBOP's Mark Christie is enthusiastic about the merger.

"It is a really positive move that the two clubs can come together.

"We are all about having clubs that start with kids from a young age and take them all the way through.

"It also keeps the club culture as the players develop. The juniors can look up to the seniors and the seniors can help the juniors along.

"Coming together has all sorts of benefits, not only with grounds but with volunteers and sharing administration, and to be financially more stable as you get more funds coming in to the one club."