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Southern Saints to become Sandringham Zebras
The Sandringham Football Club is pleased to announce that as of November 1, the Southern Saints will become the Sandringham Zebras, consolidating both brands under the one club.
After consultation with relevant stakeholders, the decision was made to unite both teams as we celebrate the 95th year of the Sandringham Football Club.
The Southern Saints VFLW team was established by St Kilda Football Club in 2017, entering the VFLW competition in 2018, and this is a connection we continue to acknowledge through our alignment with the St Kilda Football Club. The Sandringham Football Club co-managed the team from 2019 and took over the team license and full responsibility for the commercial and operational management of the team in 2020. Since then, the Sandringham Football Club has run the VFLW program. However, there has been ongoing confusion about the connection between the two teams and this has created an external narrative of separation, wearing two different brands and supporting what seems to be two separate football clubs. The hope is that, through a truly unified football program, there will be increased consistency and less confusion and the support from Sandringham FC supporters will be shared across both teams.
“This is an extremely exciting time for our club - the Southern Saints has been a massive part of our history, and the Sandringham Zebras VFLW team will no doubt be an integral part of our future,” says Sandringham FC President, Nick Johnstone.
“As a club, one of our strongest values is unity and that’s what this change represents. We are one club, and internally we always have been, however we are aware that externally the two brands have been a bit confusing. We hope that through this change, our players, staff, volunteers, sponsors, members and supporters alike will feel a common sense of identity and allegiance to the Club”.
The Sandringham Zebras VFLW side will wear the same home jumper as the VFL side.
All Southern Saints social media will change to Sandy Zebs VFLW as of November 1.
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Long overdue in my opinion, even if the name is virtually lip service in an alignment. But Sandringham supporters deserve the chance to support a team wearing their own name and colours, not one plastered with St Kilda branding.
Hopefully it might be the start of Sandringham reclaiming itself.