Lara digs in to stay

President outlines long-term ambitions

LARA has vowed to fight to remain in the Geelong Football League beyond 2019 after voting against immediate relegation.

Floating the idea of jumping to the Bellarine Football League a year before the introduction of forced promotionrelegation, the Cats voted “overwhelmingly” on Monday night to stay in Australia’s premier local competition.

And president Gerard Evans said the club would work harder to lift itself from the relegation zone.

“We are not staying in the GFL for one more year,” Evans said.

“This decision is made so we can stay in the GFL for as long as the future holds. We’re not lasting one year, this is about being strong in the GFL, competing at that level and being sustainable for a long period.

“We are committed as a club and a community to staying here in the future and this is the start of the future now.”

If the Cats finish 11th or 12th next season they will be bounced to the BFL.

High-profile members of the club considered making the move a year ahead of schedule, but it was rejected after an internal review.

“Over the last few weeks we’ve had discussions with the football committee, netball committee, players from both the football and netball section, our sponsors and community, and almost every day we’ve had a forum with the community to discuss where we’re at,” Evans said.

“And there’s been mixed responses. I think it’s really invoked a real connection to people who have been away from the club and now they are committed to the path to make us strong and stay in the GFL.

“When we did all that, we went back to the committee with informed community feedback and the committee voted and the majority vote was we stay.”

Evans said the impassioned pleas of club members had added significant weight to discussions at board level.

“There’s a lot of fear because this was the first time in Lara’s history that we talked about going down,” he said.

“For 130 years we’ve gone up through the divisions to be in the premier comp and there’s never been a consideration to go down, so there was an element of uncertainty and a level of anxiety.

“So they prefer that we’d be here (GFL) and I’ve made it clear all along that our goal is to play GFL footy. The community was quite passionate about staying and building and it’s galvanised the club.”