Well it just seems like yesterday that we finished up our 2015 season and everyone was looking forward to a well-earned break. The break didn’t last too long though, as we were back at it in October recruiting for our new adventure in Men’s NPL3.

As the saying goes, in order to understand where you are going, you have to know where you have come from. When I think back to our first year in FNSW, I am so proud of what this club achieved. Five years ago our Premier team didn’t even make the top 4 in the ESFA competition. Now, here we are mixing it with the big boys in NPL3 and winning State League 2 in our first year last season.

The whole club from top to bottom worked so hard last year to set us up for success. The main highlight for the club and me personally was seeing club legend, Charlie Davidson, receive such amazing support from the footballing community at his fundraiser when we took on a very good Sydney FC National Youth League side. To me that showed everyone what a great club Dunbar is. It goes beyond results and leagues and everyone who attended would have seen what a great family Dunbar is.

I want to say Thanks to the players for their enormous efforts last year and especially those who are not with the squad this year; thank you for getting us to where we are today and the club will always be very appreciative for the time and effort you put into ensuring we succeed. I want to congratulate Mikey Dixon for a great inaugural year with our Under 20s last year and a second congrats to Mikey for being appointed our new NPL Youth Technical Director. I couldn’t think of anyone better for the role. Mikey is Dunbar through and through and his knowledge of the game is unbelievable. All of the youth coaches will benefit immensely from working with Mikey and I’m certain the future is bright for our Dunbar youth grades.

I would also like to welcome our new U18s and U20s coaches, Eugenio and Vedran, to the club. Both coaches have vast experience both here in Australia and abroad and I’m really looking forward to working with the guys over the coming months and putting our stamp on NPL3 across the grades.

Another warm welcome to our Men’s senior Director of Football, Ger Connolly. I have known Ger for a long time and I was very excited that he accepted the role with us this year. Ger has vast coaching experience and knows exactly what is needed for teams to be successful on and off the field and he is a good friend. Ger is another long standing Dunbar member so it’s great to have people who understand the club on board.

And lastly welcome back to Keeno (James Keen) my assistant and to Ian Clayton, our strength and conditioning coach. Both Keeno and Ian are invaluable to me and played a huge part in our recent success and I’m delighted they are back this year to help us move forward.

As you may have seen, we have had a lot of publicity over the last few months and our social presence has increase dramatically over the last while. The men behind the scenes, Peter, Matt Delves, Quintin and Ger etc have done an incredible job in providing free football to all grades in our club yet maintaining a level of professional that I have not seen in many other clubs so far. All grades have the best of equipment, facilities and are looked after as they would be in a pro-environment so a huge thanks to those guys for keeping this train going and making sure no stone is unturned to ensure we get better.

Also, a massive thank you to all our sponsors from last year and all of our new sponsors this year. The simple fact is that without our sponsors we wouldn’t have what we have and wouldn’t be in this league. So thank you for your continued support and we hope to continue to make this partnership a successful one.

To all my lads this year, both new and old, preseason has gone very well so far and we continue to get better. There is still a lot of room to improve which excites me as I can see us getting better and better. The season starts in a few weeks’ time so keep working hard, keep listening, keep learning and I know, come our first game, we will be raring to go.

A huge thank you to all of the family members, friends, partners, parents etc for your continued support on this amazing journey the club is on. Whether you are 11,000 miles away in England and Ireland (Gerry, Fran, The Deasys etc) or new to the club this year and have been their even for training, your continued support is very much appreciated and we hope to see more new faces at games this year and really build on this great Dunbar community.

And lastly, an end note from me. Last year was incredible and we are all very proud of what the club achieved. Now it is time to focus on what is ahead of us. To repeat what we did last year means more time, more effort and more hard work than ever before from everyone in the club. If winning was easy, then everyone would do it. We have to work hard for each other, ensure we represent the club with pride and work together as a team. We have all we need to be successful; great facilities, great equipment, great sponsors, great teammates, great club directors, great supporters and great ability. Now, add all that to a big pot of hard work, and success will come.

Thank you again to everyone for last year and your support this year. Very exciting times ahead for the club so let’s make sure we meet every challenge together.

WILL CULLEN