City’s 50th still a golden occasion

ENDURING North Bendigo soccer club Golden City FC is marking its half century since foundation this year, but has so far struggled to properly celebrate the milestone.

Along with Strathdale, South Bendigo (now known as Spring Gully) and Bendigo Institute of Technology, the team affectionately known City is an inaugural member of the Bendigo Amateur Soccer League established 1971,

Seniors player Sean Tomlinson has been at City for nearly two decades and said like many other leagues, the local comp’s season is in disarray with no real certainty in terms of what happens for the remainder.

“Unfortunately we don’t have a crystal ball,” he said.

“In a few months, it might be a bit different with these vaccination targets, and there will maybe be a little bit more clarity in terms of lockdowns.”

“Some senior teams have gotten around two thirds of the way through the season and other teams only really half. Juniors are probably similar.”

“There’s going to have to be a chat about how they shorten the rest of the year or what else they plan to do – they could decide to pretty much just jump straight into the finals after lockdown, or shorten the finals format.”

Tomlinson also has his fingers crossed that the jewel in the crown of this year’s landmark club celebrations – the 50th Anniversary Gala Dinner – will still go ahead on 23 October, after one postponement so far and plenty of jittery former members reluctant to make firm plans to attend.

“It’s been hard to get the interest that you normally would, especially from people coming from Melbourne or interstate,” he said.

“They’ve been pretty apprehensive about booking because they don’t know what restrictions will be in place.”

“Hopefully it can happen. I’d like to think that if it was called off once more we’ll try and reschedule again. I think it’s so important to be able to celebrate.”

Currently, Golden City Football Club has more than 200 members playing across 16 teams in senior, women’s and junior competitions.