Last year school second and third teams were excluded from Eastern League men’s competition, and Central Football signalled its intention to exclude school first teams this year.
Tairawhiti Secondary Schools Principals Association opposed the plans, while the response from clubs was a mixture of support, opposition and curiosity.
In December, Central Football chief operations manager Donald Piper said the plan to exclude the school first teams was on hold until a new operations manager for Gisborne was settled in the job.
Fletcher Stewart-Hill has been appointed Central Football’s Gisborne operations manager, and the plan has been reactivated.
Stewart-Hill is a former Gisborne Boys’ High School, Thistle and Bohemians player. He was particularly effective in midfield or up front, but could also play in goal or at the back. Last season he was Thistle coach Garrett Blair’s assistant. He is the elder brother of Thistle first-team goalkeeper Mitchell Stewart-Hill.
Piper said one of the things that impressed those interviewing Fletcher Stewart-Hill was his knowledge of the game.
Piper confirmed the plan to bring senior high school players under the club umbrella was moving again.
“There is definite appetite from the clubs in Gisborne for it,” he said.
“Our intent will be two-fold. We would look to see the establishment of what we are calling a development league. That will be largely dependent on numbers. The majority of a team would be youth and secondary school players, and they would have three or four level-headed experienced players around them to help develop them as individuals.
“And we will still be looking to offer secondary school football on a midweek basis for the social player who doesn’t want to go anywhere near senior football. We’d like to do that in collaboration with the high schools.”
Piper said Central Football had no plans to keep school sides out of the Gisborne women’s league.
The plan to rejuvenate the men’s league followed a Central Football review conducted in 2018-19. It found that two thirds of senior footballers in Gisborne were over 35 years old, that the majority of clubs were struggling, and that the main problem was that the clubs had almost no connection with school-age players.
Gisborne Boys’ High School deputy principal Peter Ray thinks Central Football’s decision to drop schools from the adult competition is a mistake.
He referred to a presentation in which Children’s Commissioner Andrew Becroft told a story illustrating the importance teenage boys attached to playing alongside their mates.
Students at Wellington College had asked for a change in the way football teams were organised. Instead of the routine of trials, selections and prescribed coaches and training sessions, they wanted to be able to select their own teams – made up of their mates – and find their own managers.
They were allowed to do this and, in the next year, Wellington College increased the number of its football teams from four to 21. In a school with a roll of 1700 boys, 550 played for the school’s football club and 300 played futsal (and most of the futsal players were not winter footballers).
Peter Ray said the thinking of the Wellington College students was reflected in the attitude of players in Gisborne Boys’ High School’s second and third teams.
“I had my third 11 saying every week, ‘Why can‘t we play against the men, like we did last year?’,” he said.
“They enjoyed playing together with a group of mates, supporting each other in adversity. Even though they lost most of their games in the adult competition, by the end of the season they were loving it. They were getting better, and they knew it. Young men like a challenge.”
Ray said that Boys’ High, Lytton High and Campion College would continue to run their Wednesday afternoon interschool competition, although it would need to be strengthened to provide the continuous competitive football that they experienced in the men’s competition.
The Boys’ High first 11 would go into their Super 8 tournament having had little playing time together against tough opposition, and would meet the likes of Tauranga Boys’ College, Hamilton Boys’ High and Palmerston North Boys’ High, who regularly faced high-quality opposition.
