MATTHEW Elliott has been appointed operations manager for the Wangaratta and District Junior Football League for the upcoming 2024 season.

An experienced sport administrator across Victoria’s North East and southern New South Wales, Elliott returns to AFL North East Border (AFL NEB) after previously serving as operations manager for the Albury Wodonga Junior Football League and North East Border Female Football League from 2019-2022.

While resuming his role with those leagues, Elliott will also take over operations of the WDJFL, which encompasses teams from Wangaratta, across to Myrtleford and Bright, and down to Benalla and Mansfield.

Originally from Wangaratta, Elliott has been involved with sport administration in some fashion since 2013 when he was completing a Bachelor of Sport Management in Canberra, and has experience with many different sports and organisations, including a few years with NSW Rugby League.

Elliott said the challenge of administrating three separate leagues was significant, but he felt up to it.

“It’s similar to the previous role I had, and the Wangaratta juniors are included in that as well, I pretty much cover the majority of the North East region across all of the leagues,” he said.

“I’ve been working with the staff here at AFL NEB to manage my time – I spend a bit of time up here in Albury Wodonga and also some time down in Wangaratta as well.

“It will be challenging, managing the three roles, that’s for sure, there’ won’t be a lot of downtime, but it’s something I think we can do with myself and the team that we’ve got and the advisory groups of each of the leagues.

“It’ll definitely keep me busy.”

Despite the dearth of competition during the COVID years, the WDJFL has enjoyed a strong participation base, something which Elliott hopes to continue and expand on.

“I think a good strength that it has is the participation numbers have been very steady over the years, especially in the last few years which were impacted by the COVID pandemic,” Elliott said.

“The player numbers still seem really good, looking at the club numbers for this year across all of the grades, there’s not too much of an issue there.

“Meeting with the club executives recently as well, it seems like there’s some really good people who are managing their operations, which all works out pretty well for the kids and their families so they can enjoy some footy.

“In that way, I think the league is in a good spot and in some good hands with all of the people who are engaged in the clubs at the moment – it’s definitely a strength of the league to be in that position to start with, it just makes everything else that much easier when there are issues that arise.”

While the final WDJFL draw is yet to be finalised, round one is set for the weekend of April 13 and 14, with the grand final set for September 7.