“We also felt that the standard of football, apart from one or two teams, was similar to the Pacific Premiership, where Team Gisborne had great success in past seasons.
Garrett Blair has replaced Matt Hastings as coach, with Hastings — who spent one and a half seasons as coach of the Federation League team — pulling on the boots again.
“Matt wants to focus on playing, and having him involved is a massive boost,” said Blair, who was assistant coach to Hastings last season.
“We both have the same football philosophy, which is possession-based.
“We’ve been training for about a month and getting good numbers, 20 or more, which means we can get games of 10 or more a side.”
Thistle have lost a few players to United — Kieran Venema, Corey Adams, Josh Harris, Malcolm Marfell, Mal Scammell and Jack Feyen.
The losses have been offset by the addition of the experienced Hastings, who can play midfield or sweeper, centreback Cole Davenport, former Stop Out (Wellingon) Central League striker Jake Theron and perennial Thistle favourites David Ure and Chris Spurr.
“We’ve also retained the core of last year’s squad,” Blair said.
“We’re looking pretty healthy with regard to numbers. There’s plenty of competition for starting places.”
United player-coach Corey Adams said his squad had been training twice a week for the past four weeks.
“We’re looking forward to the season,” he said.
“We’re just a group of friends, many of whom started out with United, who want to enjoy playing football with each other.
“We’ve got experience and some good young players — Jack Faulkner and Jirah Wanoa (both Gisborne Boys’ High School players) and former Boys’ High players, Lucian Nickerson and Noy Paull.
“We’re still working with Boys’ High to get releases for Jack and Jirah, so we’re hoping they will go through.”
Jake Robertson (who played for Thistle in the Federation League last season) is still making his mind up but the big coup for Adams, whose father Chris will manage the team, is the signing of Thistle skipper Venema.
Venema is a natural leader who can play in defence or midfield and with Scammell, Josh Adams, Kieran Higham, and Marfell, United have a solid core of seasoned campaigners who will not look out of place in the Pacific Premiership.
“We’ve had a few pre-season injuries, the worst being Jeremy Ion, out for the season with a knee problem. And some of the boys are still involved with cricket, so we haven’t played our second team yet.
“As soon as the cricket finishes we’ll look at getting some games organised.
“The intensity in training has been high. I’ll be working closely with Dad, who will help with training, doing drills.”
