How west will be won with fun, by Nathan Hindmarsh
* By Nathan Hindmarsh
* From: The Daily Telegraph
* February 10, 2010 12:00AM
WELL, the secret's out. I have a new job at the Western Sydney Academy.
According to media reports, I'm now the "face of league in the west". But to tell you the truth, I'm a bit embarrassed by all the attention.
That's not to say, however, that I'm taking this role anything but seriously.
The Western Sydney Academy has been doing really good work and I want to do my part to contribute.
Rugby league is all I've ever known. In some ways I'm still a stranger to the working world, the nine-to-five world, but I want that to change. So over a coffee with an old friend, academy manager Greg Mitchell, we hatched a plan for me to get a real job! After a lot of discussion I was fortunate enough to be given this opportunity as strategy co-ordinator.
When I was growing up I just loved playing footy and being with my mates and the local club. The Moss Vale Dragons was the centre of my childhood and teenage world. (Interestingly, the Spuddies, my true local team, didn't have enough sides for me to play so I went to the neighbours!) I didn't dream of being like Terry Lamb. To be honest, I didn't have much of an imagination at all. All I knew was that my favourite time of the week was training and that the weekend game was on my mind from Monday, first lesson at school. I would be filthy if rain cancelled the game. League was just the most enjoyable thing I could do. I also felt a part of something real and old. Lots of people of different ages were involved in the team and lots of people from around the area used the footy team as their way of being a part of the community.
That's the secret to junior footy to me - fun, mates and community. It should never be more complicated than that. I didn't realise it then, but footy was more than just a sport. As we always hope for our own kids, it very quietly gave me life lessons. If the kids want to dream of growing up like my mates Andrew "Bobcat" Ryan, Nathan Cayless, Trent Waterhouse or Chris Heighington, then that's great. But as all parents know, getting kids to go to after-school training each week isn't sustained by a poster on the wall.
I know a lot has been written about basketball, soccer and other sports moving into the area and treating parents and kids like products on a supermarket shelf. None of that makes a lot of sense to me. The battle for the west may be a smokescreen. League has always been the dominant sport in the area. But if we all need reminding of something, it's that league has been at the core of good community spirit for about 100 years and the academy is here to make it easier for those currently involved in the game and those wanting to be a part of it.
I reckon western Sydney is where more kids play league per capita than in any other part of the world so I can't see that changing any time soon. But we have to remain sharp and listen to what parents, volunteers, and the kids really want. That's my job, to help the academy craft programs that attract more people into junior weekend footy.
It's a bit of a chicken and egg situation - do more volunteers attract more kids, or do more kids pestering parents attract more volunteers to form clubs? I don't know the answer to that, but I'll be trying hard to work it out.
