Football Matters with Cyclops

The Burdekin FC Presentation Night will be held on Saturday 25 October at Populin’s Hall. Get your tickets on-line now, or at the Mad House on Tuesday night.

Congratulations to Alan Chatfield, a Burdekin FC Life Member, on being recognised with the Service to Football – Platinum Award for his outstanding contribution to the game.

Night Soccer

The third week of competition with just one forfeit. The nineteen games produced seventy goals, and there were three Sin Bins! Top scorers were RG Customs with seven goals and Clare Cutters, Always Fits, Let’s get Messi and Young Guns all with four. Top individual scorer was Dom Arrate with four goals for Clare Cutters, Perry Horan scored a hat trick for Oary’s Levellers, and quite a lot of players scored twice. The clash between Mottin Earthmoving and UDS saw Sin bins for Andrew Washbourne for Mottins and Luke Torkington for UDS and Harry Haynes was binned for Wires Down.

After three weeks, Nutrien Ag and Clare Cutters lead in Mens A Grade and DL Lager top the table in B1. Bennetts Old Grumpies and Jaime’s Boys lead in B2.

In the Ladies competition, Scoregasms leads from Red Carded, Young Guns and Chicks and Chooks in AI, and 6 TO UR 7 leads in A2 from Rocky Pond Wonders.

Juniors

The Junior Social Soccer season kicked off on Tuesday with over forty teams in four grades. The Under 7s kick off at 4.00pm, the Under 8/9s play at 4.30, the Under 10/12s at 5.30 and the Under 13/16s at 5.30.

Please check the Burdekin FC Facebook page and emails from the club for the draw each week and any information and updates on the season.

National and International

The 2025-6 A League season kicks off this Friday 17 October. It is a twelve team competition and Brisbane Roar’s first match is at home to Macarthur on that date. The Women’s A league starts on Friday 31st October with eleven clubs.

The Australian Championship started last weekend. Effectively a national second division competition, it has sixteen teams, mostly from the metropolitan areas but including South Hobart from Tasmania.

The Matildas next match is a friendly against Wales, in Cardiff on 25 October, followed by another friendly against England on 29 October. They then have a rest before the AFC Women’s Asia Cup. Their first match is against the Philippines on 1 March, they then play Iran on 5 March, and their final group match is against South Korea on 8 March. In the FIFA World Rankings, Australia is ranked at 15.

The Socceroos first friendly was against Canada in Montreal last Saturday resulted and in a 1-0 victory with a goal from Nestory Irankunda. They next play the USA in Denver, Colorado on Wednesday. In the FIFA World Rankings, the Socceroos are currently ranked 25th, and the US 16th.

The Young Socceroos defeated Cuba 3-1 in their final group game of the FIFA U-20 World Cup 2025 in Chile. However, results in other groups went against them and they failed to qualify for the Round of 16.

The 2026 World Cup starts on 11 June with the Final on 19 July. Forty eight teams will compete in twelve groups of four team in the US, Canada and Mexico. The top two teams from the groups plus the best eight third placed teams qualifying for the Round of 32. The Group Draw will be made in Washington DC on 5th December. So far seventeen countries, including Australia, have qualified plus the three host countries.

Because of the 2026 World Cup Qualifying games last week, there were no games in the major European leagues. They will resume this weekend. In the Group games there were no real surprises although Austria thumped San Marino 10-0 and Turley won 6-1 away to Bulgaria. Ukraine did very well to win 5-3 in Iceland, Norway thumped Israel 5-0 and Faroe Islands defeated Montenegro 4-0.

Quote of the Week is from Trevor Brooking former West Ham and England Star, on playing Sunday morning football for Havering NALGO. “You drop your shoulder and move round a defender only to discover he didn’t read your first dummy. So you crash straight into him, and he comes away with the ball”

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