Dear Members,
We have once again faced an unexpected start to our football season, with the vast majority of grounds, teams and divisions impacted by the unprecedented wet weather over the last three months.
Since February, NSFA and your Clubs have been working extremely closely with our five Councils to best prepare and care for our 130 fields. Due to the amount of rain, there continues to be significant amounts of water standing on fields or saturated into the soil. When it rains, this results in further pooling of water which causes many fields to be unfit for play and, in many cases, unsafe. In instances when we have had 3-4 days of sunshine, our Councils have been working extremely hard to get mowers onto the fields and relaying the line-markings. As you may have noticed, the Councils have been unable to get tractors onto some fields and have been forced to use ride-on mowers, hand-mowers and in some cases, whipper snippers to prepare the fields. I can guarantee you they want us on the park as much as we do.
Ahead of this weekend, we are expecting another downpour which will add further water to the fields. We know the situation is frustrating, and we are doing all we can to move fixtures to suitable fields to play as many matches as possible. Our clubs have been supporting us through these times by conducting field inspections on late evenings, early mornings and everything in between. We must ensure we do not play on the grounds that are unsafe or when play is likely to significantly deteriorate the field.
As the season rolls on, we will reschedule fixtures and have already begun posting these via DRIBL for double-headers and using the built-in wet weather weekend within our competitions calendar. Please download the DRIBL app (instructions below) to be notified of updates.
Please check the NSFA wet weather message on weekend mornings, as decisions will be made on grounds as inspections occur.
Yours in football,
Edward Ferguson NSFA CEO
Dribl App
We encourage all members to download the Dribl app on the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store.
We have compiled a User Guide for the app providing instructions to link your PlayFootball account to Dribl – this will allow you to receive push notifications when games are rescheduled or postponed.
You can also follow specific teams and leagues within the app to view fixtures and competition tables.
Dribl User Guide The app is required for all team managers in order to submit electronic match cards.
Wet Weather Page
As in previous seasons, we will continue to provide updates about ground closures on the NSFA Wet Weather page.NSFA Wet Weather