Merger of Gladesville Hornsby Football Association and North West Sydney Women’s Football Association
The Board of Football NSW has granted in-principle approval for the merger of Gladesville Hornsby Football Association (GHFA) and North West Sydney Women’s Football Association (NWSWF).
The merged entity will be known as North West Sydney Football Ltd (North West Sydney Football) and will replace GHFA as a voting-member of Football NSW.
There will be no impact on the voting rights of any Football NSW Members and Football NSW will continue to have 18 Member-Associations.
The merger of GHFA and NWSWF, and the admission of North West Sydney Football as a Member of Football NSW, are conditional on the following:
(a) approval of the merger by the members of GHFA and NWSWF at upcoming special general meetings; (b) the incorporation of North West Sydney Football; and (c) GHFA resigning its membership in Football NSW.
Provided these conditions are met, Football NSW expects North West Sydney Football’s admission as a Member of Football NSW to take effect from 1 October 2019.
Football NSW congratulates the Boards and management of both Associations on the work they have done so far to bring two of our key stakeholders together.
GHFA (originally called the Hornsby-Epping Soccer Football Association), had its origins in 1952 with the foundation club of Epping (now known as Epping Eastwood FC).
In 1956, the Association changed its name to Northern District Football Association to accommodate the teams joining from beyond the geographical boundaries of Hornsby to Epping. The growth was so rapid to the south that in 1959 it was necessary to again change the name to the current day Gladesville Hornsby Football Association.
Since those early days, GHFA has grown to its current 30 clubs and 12,400 members. GHFA is a mixed competition with girls and boys playing together in MiniRoos and in junior age groups. While GHFA has some older female players, the majority have preferred to play in the women’s only competition conducted by NWSWF.
NWSWF (originally called Gladesville-Hornsby Women’s Soccer Association (GHWSA)) was formed in 1981. Clubs in that area had played in the Kuringai competition for the previous eight years as there was no local women’s competition.
A Steering Committee was formed in 1980 to establish GHWSA.
The Association’s name was changed to NWSWF in 2000 to more accurately reflect its player distribution. At that time, NWSWF had 23 teams but has now grown to 103 MiniRoos teams, 61 Junior teams and 68 Senior teams.
The NWS Koalas have NPL Women’s/Girls’ teams competing in U14s, U15s, U17s, Reserve Grade and First Grade competitions as well as SAP teams in the U10s, U11s, U12s and U13s. NWSWF also runs an all abilities program called PINK (PLAY, INTERACT, NETWORK, KICK).
With 22 of the 28 NWSWF member-clubs also being member-clubs of GHFA, there are sound reasons for the two Associations to merge, including simplified administration and economies of scale for member-clubs and for the Associations themselves.
