Plenty of clubs will take your registration.

We'd rather have your family.

Here's what that actually means on a

cold Sunday morning at Strathaird Reserve - and why it's worth

driving past another club to get here.

WHAT WE MEAN BY IT

#MembersNotNumbers it's decision, not a slogan

It's easy to put on a website. Here's what it costs us to actually mean it.

It means we know your child's name. Not their jumper number — their name, and usually their brother's and sister's names too.

It means when a player goes quiet for a few weeks, somebody notices, and somebody calls.

It means we'd rather run a team where every kid gets a game than a team built to win a flag with six players on the bench.

It means when a family is doing it tough, we find a way, because we are built by families who collectively are a community. We will help quietly, and without anyone else knowing.

A club that treats kids as numbers can do things we can't.

We've made our peace with that.

GAME DAY

Every kid who turns up gets a game

Junior footy is where children learn the game. They cannot learn it from the interchange bench.

So our coaches rotate players through positions, give everyone real minutes, and treat a close loss where fourteen kids improved as a better day than a big win where four kids did.

Your child will have games where they barely touch the ball. Every player does, at every level. What they won't have is a season of watching.

A kid who has never
touched a footy gets
the same welcome as
one who's played since
Auskick.

If that sounds obvious, ask around. It isn't.

Starting from scratch

Nobody arrives knowing the rules

Every season, our youngest teams are mostly children who have never played a game of football in their lives. That is completely normal here, and it's the reason our coaches teach from the very beginning every single year.

New players get a Buddy - another player whose actual job is to look after them. Answer their questions. Show them where things are. Including, as we put it, the questions they're too shy to ask.

Your child does not need to be sporty, tall, fast, or to have watched a game on television. They need boots, a mouthguard, and a willingness to have a go.

GIRLS AT THE SAINTS

Any club can say "girls welcome".
We changed things instead.

Empowering Girls.

Building Teams.

Creating Leaders.

Here is what sits underneath that.

Female-supervised change rooms. No male access unless accompanied by a female official. Not a policy on a wall — how it runs, every week.
Well-lit facilities across the club. Because a girl walking back from training in the dark shouldn't be something her parents have to think about.
Change rooms stocked with hair ties, sanitary products and deodorant. A small thing. Not remotely small if you're thirteen and caught out.
Senior women's players at our training sessions. Sharing what they know, and showing our girls exactly where this can lead.
Girls' teams that span two age groups. Under 12 Girls is for tens and elevens, Under 14 Girls for twelves and thirteens, and so on. It means a girl starting at eleven or thirteen walks into a team with players her own age, instead of being the oldest beginner in the room.

We field girls-only teams from Under 12 through to Under 18.5 - and the moment competitive football starts, the girls have their own teams. Girls' footy here isn't something bolted on that begins late. It begins the same year everybody else's does.

THE UNIFORM

Cut for her body.

Same price as everyone else's.

Ask a girl what stops her enjoying a game and she'll rarely say "the jumper".

Ask what she's thinking about while she's bending over a loose ball, and you might get a different answer.

So our girls' kit is cut for female bodies - properly designed, not a boys pattern made smaller.

Girls' jumper and shorts — the design detail behind the fit.

From the outside, it looks like everybody else's. Taped waistband, same colours, same club, same team photo. Nobody can tell she's wearing a different cut — which is exactly the point. She gets a uniform that works, without being marked out as the girl in the different gear.

And it costs the same as the unisex kit. Not a cent more. Girls' sportswear is routinely priced above the boys' equivalent. We're not doing that. Playing footy in something that actually fits shouldn't be a premium your daughter pays.

COST

No child misses out over money.
We mean that literally.

Season fees are $250, with sibling discounts, and we accept Get Active Kids vouchers -which for a lot of families brings it down a long way.

And you don't have to pay it in one hit.

We run payment plans - and you can start one right now, in the off-season, months before a ball is bounced. Put a small amount aside each week from here and by the time pre-season starts, it's done.

It costs you nothing to set up and it doesn't change anything about your child's spot. For a lot of families it's simply the difference between "we'll see" and "yes".

Want to start one? Email treasurer.nssjfnc@gmail.com — it takes one message.

And if the fees themselves are the problem, talk to us. Every season there are families who would quietly pull their child out over cost. We'd much rather have the awkward conversation and find a way. Nobody on the ground will ever know it happened.

WHERE AND WHO

A local club, for local families

We play out of Strathaird Reserve, 34 Community Parade, Narre Warren South, and our families come from across Narre Warren South, Berwick, Clyde North, Hampton Park and Cranbourne.

The venue pre-season will be announced soon, when confirmed by council.

We're a junior football club, competing in South East Juniors and South East Regional competitions, with teams from U8 right through to Under 18.5 - and a transition into senior football, to the Narre South Saints, when our junior players age out.

teams in 2027, mixed boys and girls

Auskick & Superkick participants

$250

season club fees, discounts are available

100%

volunteer run