Happy new year Phantoms and welcome to season 2022.

Hope you have all had a good break, a happy festive season, and are starting to build your fitness for the start of the season.

Your committee has been as busy as I can remember for an off season, however it has been productive and will benefit the club going forward.

With borders supposedly opening up on February 5th, Covid’s shadow looms over the season once again, but hopefully it doesn’t disrupt it too much.

So getting into 2022 this is what’s happening...

Team Structure

The association has decided to trial a new age structure for the 2022 season. This season Supers will be 33-42, Masters 42-49 and seniors 50+. They are also hoping to schedule at least 4 over 60’s matches played between a north and south side.

Due to our age demographic, we have taken the decision to run with a Supers and a Masters side this year, and forego the Seniors. With only between 10 -15 players 50+ on our books we would find it hard to field a side each week.

I would encourage as many of you in the 42-45 bracket that feel they are up to Supers level to continue playing down so we can keep solid numbers across both teams and everyone gets a run.

Pre-season

Our pre-season will begin on Sunday February 6 at Gil Fraser starting at 9am. Bring joggers and or boots.

At this stage we will hold three sessions at Gil Fraser, and hold our registration day on Sunday 27th of February down at South Beach, followed by our walk through a few establishments on our way into Fremantle.

Please keep an eye on the website in case there are any changes.

Events

Our first event for the year will be a sausage sizzle down at Bunnings Melville on Saturday February 5th. Please check the website to see what time you are rostered on for. If you are unable to fill your allocated time, the onus is on you to change with someone in a more convenient time.

Bushy and Johnno are organizing a 20-20 cricket match. This is likely to be held on Sunday 20th of February after training. The venue will be confirmed soon, and it may be that we train at the same venue as Gil Fraser isn’t available for cricket that day.

There is also a raft up being organized, with more details to come as this gets organized.

Communication and Recruitment

Morgs not only has turned up and put his stamp on the Supers team and their trophy, he has also taken over our communications and media, and he’s doing a power of great work.

We have a new website www.thefremantlephantoms.com.au, which will be our central source of information both for the club and the general public. If you want to know dates of events, fixtures and even who is being featured on the Masters of the Phantoms competition, then head to the website.

On top of this Morgs has launched a social media recruiting campaign targeting our age demographic, our general recruiting zone and like for like blokes already involved in the club. This is already showing positive results, with a number of potential players contacting us through the webpage.

Sponsorship

I am pleased to announce that we have retained all our sponsors from last year, as well as adding 3 new backers to our club.

I am very happy that The National remain our major sponsor, as well as having KRB, Melville Hyundai, Bibra Lake Soils, Thorz and Workit, Force Finance and MND supporting us once again.

We are wearing new shorts this season, which will now proudly display the logo of Ballers Sports Bar in Freo. In return each player will receive a membership card that provides the following benefits:

1) Members will receive 10% off all non-discounted/everyday low food, merchandise, paid events, wine and spirits.

2) Members will receive 15% off all taps and $2 off tin beers/cider/RTD that is not already discounted or an everyday low.

3) Members will accumulate 1 point per dollar spent (equals an extra 5% off) this can be either used by the member or donated to the club equipment fund.

4) All members as a bonus on showing your card at Armando Sports get 10% off on discounted item

There will also be a club card stationed behind the bar for when you forget yours, and we have been encouraged to let your family members know about this as they can use the card as well.

Major Motors have also come on board for 2022, and we appreciate their support.

Emily Taylor will also be backing us with a number of vouchers which we will be handing out as some sort of award each Choke the Chicken night.

We are currently in the process of ordering new gazebos and sponsorship banners etc that will promote the club and these valuable sponsors.

Membership

The association has ditched Sports TG and there is now a new registration platform called Play HQ. Some of you may have seen it already due to netball and junior footy. Rocket just has to finish the setup and it will be livefrom Monday 24th. The link is: https://www.playhq.com/afl/register/65d15d(not live yet!).

**Rocket will send out instructions in the near future on what you need to do.**

Fees at the moment will be $280, and this will include a pair of shorts and socks. Players who register and pay in full before round 1 will receive a $30 bar card. Please note, there has been some changes to insurance premiums at association level, so we are just waiting to see what our cost will be before finalizing this completely.

Vaccine Protocols

As a club participating in the AFL Masters WA association, who come under the WA Football Commission umbrella, we will be playing under whatever protocols the commission directs us to. This hasn’t been handed down as yet, however I would think they are leaning towards players and club officials needing to be double vaccinated to participate in the competition this year. It appears that the majority of our members are already in this category.

I will let the club know as soon as I’m made aware of the association stance.

Once again keep an eye on the website, as well as our other social media to keep up to date with what’s happening, and start encouraging a few mates and school dads etc that The Phantoms are the place to be in 2022. Should be an exciting year.

Regards,

Steve Ross