Today sees Wanganui Athletic and Wanganui City pit their best teams against each other in the 2015 instalment of the Charity Cup, while the final round-robin matches of the Charity Bowl and Plate grace the outer fields at Wembley Park.
The charity competitions have been a long tradition in Wanganui football, running for close to a century. All proceeds for entry into the competition are each year donated to a nominated charity.
With such a noble competition supporting the local community, it is always great to see the whole football fraternity get behind this competition every year, irrespective of their club or organisation affiliations.
The top four spots in the Charity Plate competition are already sewn up, so today's match between the Athletic Reserves and the City Hammers at 12.30pm is a bit of a dead rubber for the Hammers, whose position is already secured.
The match will still be played with plenty of spirit however, and the reserves will surely look to capitalise on last week's Division 1 victory and give the Hammers something to think about as they head into their semifinals next week.
Teams are still vying for semifinal spots in the Charity Bowl, so today's results are crucial in deciding the final make-up of the top four.
The Athletic Cosmos and the Marist Casuals continue their momentous battle at 12.30pm, the Casuals recording back-to-back victories over the hugely experienced Cosmos in their last two outings.
The Casuals will need to be wary of the Cosmos though. They are a team stacked with serious talent, albeit in their later years, so the game can quickly change if they're not aware.
At the same time as those two teams exchange blows, the Athletic Weekenders and the City Thirsties, who secured the Division 2 title last weekend, will both be looking to grab valuable competition points and edge into the top four for the Charity Bowl elimination semifinals.
The feature match of the day, though, will be between Athletic and City, having been allowed to name an 18-man squad for the home-and-away fixtures today and next weekend. Both sides have put forward strong teams and it should provide plenty of entertainment for those on the sidelines. Historically these derby matches are great encounters and another chance for one club to get the upper hand over the other in bragging rights.
The home-and-away format means the scores over both matches will count towards an aggregate score, so the "away" teams' goals count for double in each fixture.
Today, City act as the away team, and will surely be looking to rack up goals and give themselves a boost on aggregate, while Athletic know they have a job to do, and will call on all their experience to keep City at bay.
The game kicks off at 2.30pm on the main ground, so be sure to support these teams that are supporting local charities.
The teams are
Wanganui Athletic (Home): Scott Burney, Jordan Gilmore,
Tim Hayes, Josh Parker, Zeb Small, Aiden Upward, Symon King,
Andrew Lendrum, Matthew Hausman, Richard Saunders, Aaron
Toy, Nasr Ghamri, Shane Wye, Peter Flood, Tawhiri Pohio, Sam
Conley, Logan Hughes.
Wanganui City (Away): Nick Toyne, Ben Toyne, Adrian Ngaau,
Dylan Howells, James Satherly, James Barnes, Tesco Grunwald,
Jordan Joblin-Hall, Jamie Lambe, Sam Willis, Dan Aplin, Anthony
Bell, Zane Robinson, Kelvin Francis, Jareth Lau, Latham Berry,
Max Davidson.