HORSHAM and District Soccer Club is turning to socialisation to improve on-field performance.
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Committee member Gavin McRoberts said the club's under-15s team, which played in the Ballarat and District Soccer Association, noticeably improved toward the end of last year's season.
He put the improvement down to the team spending time getting to know each other off the field.
"The team had a lot of social activities outside of soccer and by the end of the season you could see it was paying off," he said.
"The more you get to know someone, the better the communication gets and we have seen it translate out onto the park."
Mr McRoberts said the club would host regular social activities in the hope of improving performance in its other teams.
Horsham fielded two teams in the Ballarat and District Soccer Association in 2014, in the men's division three and under-15 junior sections.
The club wants to double the number of teams this year, with an open women's team and under-17 junior team planned.
"We're planning on having monthly events through the season just to increase the social activity in the club a bit," Mr McRoberts said.
The club will kick off its new social agenda tonight at 6pm, with a barbecue at May Park, Horsham.
Mr McRoberts invited anyone who was interested in the sport to attend.
"People can bring some food down and we'll have a bit of a kick at some stage as well," he said.
"We just want to keep the club together and interested in what everybody is doing."
Mr McRoberts said pre-season training would start on Friday next week at Horsham's Sawyer Park.
He said the club was still looking for women's players and needed more numbers to try to field two junior teams in the Ballarat league.
He said the two junior teams might not be possible if there was not enough interest.
"We've still got plenty of time before the season starts and registrations don't open until late February, but we'd love to have some people get involved early," he said.
"We have had a bit of interest and the numbers are steadily growing, but we don't have quite enough yet so we are still looking for more people."