Shepparton’s St Luke’s Catholic Primary School is currently experiencing a mad case of football fever.
Led by a band of exciting young students, the school’s rapidly growing football team will embark on its biggest and most exciting challenge today, as it travels to Melbourne to compete in the Victorian Primary School Football Championships.
This comes after a number of fantastic results during the course of the season, with the boys from St Luke’s claiming victory in the Shepparton division before heading to the regional championships and defeating schools from Yarrawonga and Wodonga.
Now preparing to take on the best talent Victorian primary schools have to offer, St Luke’s’ physical education co-ordinator Troy Watts said it was exciting to see how far the team had come.
“It is a pretty massive thing for a school of our size,” Watts said.
“We are competing against schools that are much bigger from all over the state, so for us it is a big achievement.
“It is also exciting for the whole Shepparton area, we haven’t had a winner from here for quite a while, so we’ll head down and try to represent the region with pride.”
The rapidly rising football squad serves as an integral part of the school’s now four-year-old physical education program, as it continues to help develop the region’s most exciting young sporting talent.
Watts explained the growth the team had experienced in the past 12 months.
“With Sol Zak and Nate Warrin (playing for Victoria) last year and Sol again this year, it has given a huge boost to our football community,” he said.
“We’ve had a couple more Grade 6 kids come in this year that are quite into our football, which has also definitely helped us.
“I think just having that top-end talent has been the key and helped bring the rest of the boys along.”
But as we all know, the success of a football team far extends past just playing matches on the weekend.
Watts said he had been particularly impressed with the dedication the boys had shown in achieving success.
“It has been a massive task from start to finish, especially with the impacts of COVID-19, but the boys have done a fantastic job,” he said.
“We try and get out a couple of times during the week for training, where the whole team really applies itself.
“The travel as well has been a major factor in our efforts, last week we were in Benalla and now heading down to Melbourne, it has been a true team effort and I am very proud of everyone involved.”
The support from the wider school community has been pivotal to their success, which is something Watts has really enjoyed watching during the year.
“It (the atmosphere about the school) has been quite exciting to be honest,” he said.
“We have quite a few parents coming down to watch us in Melbourne and we had a lot in Benalla as well, so it’s become something that’s really banded our school community together.”
As for what he hopes the team can achieve on the state championships stage, Watts said his eyes were set on taking away the ultimate prize.
“This group of boys, in particular, just love playing with each other and that has definitely given the team a major boost,” he said.
“It would certainly have to be a massive effort from us given we are competing against schools that have 1000-plus kids, we only have 280, but I’m confident in the boys’ ability, they will be up to the task.
“I do have high hopes and fingers crossed we will be returning to Shepparton with some silverware.”