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Maitland has been flagged to become Northern NSW’s home of futsal after playing host to series three of the 2014 Australian National Futsal League northern conference last weekend.
Northern NSW Futsal president George Poulos was thrilled with the Maitland Federation Centre, which was the venue as men’s and women’s teams from Newcastle, Port Macquarie, Brisbane and Sydney competed against each other across Saturday and Sunday.
Poulos said Maitland would host more events in the future.
“Maitland will become Northern NSW’s main centre for futsal,” he said.
“We will be having more state tournaments at Maitland, it’s a wonderful facility, they’ve got four courts there and much better facilities.”
The Newcastle Titans led the men’s competition heading into the weekend and scored wins over Sydney Storm (8-3), East Coast Eagles (22-2) and Athletico Brisbane (7-4) on Saturday.
The Titans then earned a 4-all draw with Parramatta Blues on Sunday, scoring the equaliser in the last 20
seconds, after they had trailed 4-1 midway through the second half.
Newcastle, who feature Northern NSW National Premier League footballers Hakan Canli and Matt Hoole, are on top of the table heading into the final round in Brisbane.
After the successful weekend the Titans are favourites to be crowned Eastern Region Champions.
Northern NSW Futsal president George Poulos said the weekend was a resounding success.
“It was terrific, we achieved what we wanted to as a club on the court and off the court,” he said.
“Maitland has a great facility as far as the grand stand for people to watch and there are great places for our visitors from Queensland and Sydney to stay locally.”
The Newcastle Titans feature Australian futsal representatives Ricky Curmi and Tum Cao as well as Canli and Hoole along with Australian youth players Alex Tserepas and Peter Mullard.
Poulos said futsal in the Maitland area had taken off in recent years.
“We started about four years ago at the Maitland Federation Centre with a handful of teams,” he said.
“We are now up to 400 players and we could easily double that number.”
The final round will be held in Brisbane in two weeks.
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