Essendon Football Club wishes to advise the start time for the 2014 Family Day to be held on Friday March 7 has been moved to 6pm.

Following a number of recent enquiries the club would like to outline the reasons behind the changes to our Family Day format this year :

-          Over the past two years, the extreme heat has impacted our ability to put on a safe and enjoyable event for fans, players and staff.  Last year in particular, we had to move the start time two hours earlier to accommodate for the heat.

-          We received numerous feedback previously that the Monday public holiday was problematic for some fans and that instead, a Friday evening would allow fans to make additional long weekend plans

-          With a busy pre-season training schedule including NAB Challenge game and community camp, this date was deemed to be the best fit in regards to the players’ training and recovery schedule

-          Given the above factors, we determined that aligning the Family Day event with our practice match against Richmond at Punt Road Oval at 1pm made for a great day for Bombers fans.

We understand that many fans have work or travel commitments that might preclude them from attending both of these events.  However, the following measures are being put in place to ensure as many fans can attend:

-          A limited number of tickets will be for sale online for this practice match.  As soon as we have confirmation from Richmond Football Club, we will relay that on to our fans

-          We will be streaming the game live both online and at the True Value Solar Centre from 1pm onward for fans that can arrive early

-          We are currently looking into hiring shuttle buses from a nearby train station to the True Value Solar Centre.  More details to come.

For those fans that are still unable to attend our Family Day event, please note that most training sessions throughout the year are open to fans.  For more information on dates, click here.  For our country supporters, we will be organizing a special weekend training session that they will be personally invited to via email in the coming months.

As always we appreciate your feedback and look forward to seeing you at this year’s Family Day or another event throughout the 2014 season.