April 12, 2023 at 10:12 am
Goderich Little League Soccer is undergoing a major reorganization this year.
President Megan Frain says the North Huron Football League has been disbanded. St. Columban joined the Elgin Middlesex League last year and Exeter joined them this year. In order for them to be able to compete in the games they have been involved in in the past, they will also join Elgin Middlesex this year.
However, Frayne said Elgin Middlesex was a more organized league. One of the policies is at a younger age, they have fewer kids playing on smaller pitches so players have more chances to play.
“Godrich currently has five full-size football pitches, each 100 meters long, which does not apply to any of our U-13 and under players,” Frayn said. “We probably have about 350 kids who fall into those categories.”
Frayne said they hope to revamp the YMCA and use it as their grassroots centre, where they will have some U-13 fields with a maximum length of 75m and three U-11 size fields with a maximum length of 55m.
“Then we’ll divide the U-11 field so we have six small fields that we can use for our home league program or for our kids, U-7s and U-9s,” she said.
Frayne said they’ve measured their current field and they believe they can make it work. She said it had to be done by mid-May so they didn’t have a lot of time, but she said everyone was very helpful and they went very fast. She hopes everything will be done by the start of the season.
According to Fraye, they have a record number of players this year, with about 450 kids registered and another 20 on the waiting list. She said she was talking to someone at Goderich Minor Baseball recently, and he said they also had a record number this year. So she suspects there are a lot of kids who are happy to have COVID behind them and be normal again.