THIS weekend will be a significant day for Bathurst in 2020: The return of competitive junior and senior team sport since coronavirus shutdowns.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
And it comes in the form of the Bathurst District Football, who are still looking to offer as close to a full length season as possible for their players at Proctor Park.
Despite the late start to the season there are still strong enough numbers across the board to feature seven men's and seven women's teams across BDF Premier League.
When junior teams take to the field on Saturday and senior start their season on Sunday it will be a chance for BDF president Andrew Speed and the committee to catch their breath after confirming team numbers and putting draws together.
"Everyone's ready to go and we're excited to see it all starting up," Speed said.
"We have dropped a few teams but not too many. There were a couple in juniors and Mudgee aren't playing at all, which is a little bit disappointing.
"It's great to be back and we're still going to have a very big season."
Abercrombie, Panorama, Lithgow Workmens, CSU and Collegians make up the men's top tier while Abercrombie, Panorama, Millthorpe, Macquarie, CSU and Eglinton will form women's Premier League.
Bathurst District Football put the call out to clubs during the COVID-19 shutdowns to see if their teams were still interested in playing when the season eventually started, and they also asked what length of season they were interested in playing.
Speed said the response from clubs was almost unanimously towards playing out as long a season as possible.
"Juniors are going to finish at the end of September, at the start of the school holidays, and seniors will go through until the end of October," he said.
"It was a pretty unanimous decision from both those camps. We're still doing a bit of fine tuning with the draw ... but the top grades should get two full rounds and a finals series."
Bathurst District Football released the draws for all grades on Tuesday, featuring four men's grades and two women's grades.
The bottom men's grade is being treated as a combined fourth and fifth grade competition which will split into two groups, based on placings, past the mid point of the season.
It's a similar story for the women's second grade competition, which will also break up their competition in half come early September.
Speed said it will be a satisfying moment to see players back on the Proctor Park turf.
"It's been a very busy couple of weeks. Normally we have a couple of months to prepare but we've been trying to get things reorganised in a short space of time," he said.
"But it's going to be good having all the kids back on the park."
In men's Premier League Abercrombie and Panorama have a double header against one another as AFC Gold plays PFC Red and AFC Navy face PFC Black. Collegians make their return to first grade with a game away to Lithgow while CSU have the bye.
In women's Premier League AFC Gold are set to play Panorama, AFC Navy host Millthorpe, CSU plays Macquarie United while Eglinton will have to wait another week.