NPL Division 1 Football
My biggest achievement of 2023 was my journey in the NPL Division 1 Side of Football. After coming back to outdoor football last year, playing for a Division 1 team (Murdoch University Melville u14 Div1), during the offseason and start of 2023 I had a opportunity to trial for an NPL team (Fremantle City u15 NPL) where I found half of my Division 1 team playing at as well.
The first big part of the season came when we had to play in a grading tournament, where all the clubs in WA for our age group were split into 3 groups of 6. Ours was the most contended group, having 4 previous NPL Division 1 teams and only 2 NPL Division 2 teams and one crossover with a random team from group 3. In the group we battled our way and placed 3rd out of the 6 allowing us to play in NPL Division 1 side only scrapping by with a single point above a previous NPL Division 1 side that placed higher than the previous team before me.
With the Divisional season starting we saw the teams and expected to have a hard facing season. Pushing our way through, we faced some of the top teams in WA, with some disappointing losses and hard fought wins, and well deserved draws. We even beat the team at the top of the table at one stage and drawing against the league champions. We called our self the most clutch team in WA as we always managed to come back from a loss in the last few minutes of a game doing this to teams such as Perth Glory and Perth Red Star. It became a truly unforgettable season even though we only placed 7th out of 10 teams.
The season ended with a highly anticipated carnival known as the Bunbury Cup, where teams from all over WA would come down to Bunbury to play against eachother to win inside of a group of 5. Before the carnival we decided that we were going to mess around as we had pushed ourselves to the max throughout the season and wanted to just have fun. Even though we were placed inside the top group we lost almost every game, drawing only one. But even though we were unable to win anything we all were exceptionally happy and we had all enjoyed ourselves throughout the whole weekend that we were down there.
Currently in the November of 2023 I have decided to drop down to Division 1 side of the same club, just to have fun and mess around. Maybe in the future I will decide to try and push back up to the NPL side of Football.