Dear Chelsea Members, 5th June 2019

I am writing to you in response to several incidents that have been brought to my attention over the past couple of weeks that do not reflect the values and behaviours we are continually working to uphold as a local community sporting club.

We are tracking well as a club and positioned to potentially have 3 football teams and 5 netball teams play finals this year with several teams having the capability to win a premiership this season. Something that all players, coaches, volunteers and board members are working hard to achieve, It will be a proud day if this is achieved.

Sport is driven by emotion, the challenge for us all is to control our emotions ensuring that our thoughts and opinions are controlled and do not have a negative impact on the game or individuals playing or officiating the game.

My concern is around the directed abuse and language towards our players along with game officials and opposition players. No one turns up on game day with the intention to have a bad game or make mistakes, everyone will take the field or court to do their best for our club and the uniform they are wearing. Some days we win and some days we lose, how we lose as a club is more defining than how we win. It is easy to pat some one on the back after a good game, the challenge for all of us is how do we respond when teams or players have an off day. Do we support or do we criticise?
Unfortunately, we have a minority that choose the later and verbally attack our own players and continually criticise how things are done on and off the field. If you have a concern or see a problem, happy to hear about it but also give some thought to a possible solution.

If you as a member notice behaviour that is not in line with our community values and are not comfortable to address them, please feel free to discuss with myself or any board member for follow up in confidence. My mobile number is below if anyone would like to discuss this further with me.

As the President and fellow member of this club I ask for your support in changing this behaviour, we all know what is acceptable as supporters and what is not. If your son, daughter, brother, sister or friends wore the brunt of abuse would you accept this behaviour or address this behaviour?

As members, officials, players, supporters of Chelsea we all have a role to play in eliminating these behaviours from our club as we continue to work towards evolving from a good club into a great club.

Thank you in advance for your support.
Michael Davis
President Chelsea FNC
0410305360