Cover Photo: Tom Pattison/Burnt Oak Photography

Tallon Smith

One of the state’s oldest clubs will take to the field once again next season after the Narrabri Blues confirmed they will return to the Group 4 competition in 2026 following a year in recess.

After a few difficult years on field, culminating in a second-last placed finish, the Blues made the call to withdraw from the competition last season, with a focus on rebuilding and returning 12 months later.

In the end, the rebuild ended up going exactly to plan, with committee member and former Vice-President Matt Keeffe declaring that the Blues’ return is the talk of the town.

“There’s a lot of people talking about it,” he said.

“It’s been hard for the last 12 months not having football on the weekend and not being able to turn up.

“A lot of people got a little bit cranky and didn’t travel to watch the football either, because they were so disappointed, but we’re quite excited about what’s ahead in the next 12 months.”

Over the course of the season, many players joined diehard Narrabri fans in taking a year off from footy, while some others did play for other clubs within Group 4.

However, Keeffe said that despite some in town spending a year away from the game, the club’s committee worked with coach Hayden Bell to ensure things were set well in advance for the proposed return in 2026.

“A few of the guys actually played for other towns, there’s a lot of guys that actually sat the year out just to see what would happen,” he said. 

“With Hayden Bell at the helm, he’s an extremely passionate and intelligent kid, so he’s had a lot of plans and we’ve been doing a lot of work the entire season even though we weren’t playing.

“The committee has been working behind the scenes to actually get everything ready to go [and] lay all the groundwork so when we do come in next year, we’re ready to go.”

Last year, Keeffe stated that the 104-year first came about due to a lack of numbers, with only 12 players showing up to training and the club declaring that it was unviable to enter a team with so few players.

Almost a year later, he said that call had been vindicated, with the year away from the game allowing the club to rebuild without losing players due to poor on-field results which would have inevitably occurred if they entered a side last season.

“They did it the last couple of years [in the competition], where they had a lot of kids that weren’t seasoned,” he said.

“There was a lot of good footballers, but they didn’t have a lot of old guys that were actually trying to bring them through and help them out, so they were a very young side, and it’s very disheartening getting flogged every week, which a couple of teams actually found out this year.

“We weren’t in it, but they were getting flogged week in week out, so there was a massive gap between the top three teams and the bottom two. 

“So with everything that’s happened, I think it’s actually worked in our favour, we’re more financial this year, because it didn’t cost us anything for this season just gone, [and] what we’ve done is built on that and made sure that the committee was actually ready to go.”

As for how numbers are looking at this early stage heading into next season, Keeffe said that there have been good turnouts at training and even an extra weekly session added.

“The talk’s really positive around town with footballers from the last couple of years, [they] are all really keen to have a go,” he said.

“They’ve even started training on Saturday mornings already, there’s six or eight guys that are actually turning up to that, and I think there’s about 20 guys in the actual group chat that are pretty keen.”

The new Group 4 season will kick off in April.