16 DAYS TO GO – DONVALE
- rlong69
- Mar 27, 2015
- 2 min read
BLEEDING GREEN
“Choose Tap” Countdown | Donvale Football Club
By Alysia Thomas-Sam
Have you ever seen football players Bleed Green?
If your answer is no, it’s probably because you don’t know about the new club in Division 4 that Bleeds Green on and off the field.
“The players are saying this the a start of a football club and we’re all looking at Donvale Football Club as if its starting in 2015,” Senior coach Ang Lamanna declared.
The Magpies underwent a full year hiatus from the Eastern Football League, but the time away hasn’t stopped players flocking to Donvale Reserve for a kick.
“Our number count at preseason has been exceptional,” Lamanna said.
In saying that, it hasn’t been a smooth – or quiet – preseason for the head coach. “It’s been a very long preseason, in between a lot of phone calls and a lot of meetings,” he said.
“But it’s certainly been worthwhile.”
With a fit and fighting playing list ready to hit the field for the Magpies in 2015, it’s difficult not to reflect on the year the entire side went missing from all the action.
Despite Lamanna’s limited involvement, he knows the members and community around the Donvale Football Club have been pillars holding the club upright and building it up to something better.
“In terms of their commitment with the football club, and I’ve been around footy for a long time, has been second to none.”
“It’s like these poor blokes have two full-time jobs, one gets you paid and one doesn’t and it’s the one they do for love,” he laughed.
Ahead of Round 1, the Magpies have new gyms for players to enjoy, but in the long run, it’s truly to make each player feel comfortable and welcome.
“What we can provide is a good environment for the players,” Lamanna explained.
As the gym is an example of an improvement, the long hours and exhaustion-laden months of 2014 for the Donvale Football Club has been for one intention. That is, to create a sustainable club.
“We’re not putting any guidelines on the football club, we want to be sustainable and make sure we’re competitive. As a coach, that’s my expectations of the players,” Lamanna explained. The year off meant a whole deal more to the Magpies than physically revitialising the club; it was to manufacture a rebirth in the Donvale Football Club.
The Magpies that will play in the 2015 season isn’t just an enhanced team from the Magpies that played in 2013, it’s a completely different club.
The Magpies in 2013 didn’t Bleed Green. But the Magpies this year will.
“That’s our motto for the year. Whatever we do, we do it for the football club. In saying that, on field and off field, we bleed the colours and that means we do it for each other and the football club,” Lamanna said.
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