By JARROD POTTER
FIVE year to 50 years… however long you can carry on in the beautiful game, Casey Panthers Soccer Club will have a team you can play in.
The Football Federation Victoria (FFV) affiliated club based out of Prospect Hill Reserve in Narre Warren, had been a juniors-only club since it was founded in 2001, but found former juniors wanted to continue donning the colours and playing as Panthers in the older ranks.
The Panthers introduced senior women’s soccer to great success last season and decided to finish the senior expansion this year with a men’s team.
Playing in FFV State League 5 South, the Panthers will be helmed by former junior coach Mark Wells to guide the senior team to the levels of success they had all those years ago in under-12s.
“One of the more successful teams we had, I was fortunate enough to coach – which was seven or eight years ago,” Wells said.
“We ended up winning the league back then and the next year we came in the top two or three, so we had a couple of good years.
Pretty much that group of boys, what they’ve done is they stayed with the club and played all the way though and played under-18s last year.
“Of course, they wanted to stay at the club, and the only way they could continue to play was to have a senior team – so the club is very much a community minded club and wanted to look after anyone who wanted to play soccer.”
The Panthers made their senior men’s debut two weeks ago in the FFA Cup preliminary rounds, and Casey Panthers rallied to force Noble Park SC to fight to the finish.
The higher ranked Noble Park SC held on however to take the 4-3 win and advance, but Wells was impressed with the young and small roster he had at his disposal and their attitude, despite injuries piling up.
“We had probably only four players over 21 – the rest of the squad were 18-19,” Wells said.
“I was very happy with the way we went – I’ve only been looking after them for a month now – and there’s always that concern about how well they will gel together.
“We don’t have a huge player base at the moment, so we only had 14 players registered, and to be honest, in the end we ran out of players and that’s why I think we ended up getting rolled.
“A couple went off injured and we ran out of legs a little bit, but I was happy with the way we played – scoring goals is the key to soccer and we did that, but we were a little leaky at the back.”
The Panthers are still on the lookout for new players – senior or junior, male or female – and if you’re interested in signing up, contact the Panthers via their website www.caseypanthers.org.au or email at caseypanthers@hotmail.com
Casey Panthers’ men will kick off their FFV season on 21 March away against Baxter.
