Football
Sporting organisations mean different things to different people, most who do not get involved in the sports from a young age probably do not have any great attachment with sports as they get older.
From a young age I was involved in football, either playing it at school or with amateur clubs and I spent a number of years in the St John Ambulance Brigade when I was young, an organisation that donated their services to provide first aid to public events. It was through St Johns that I got to spend a lot of time around football clubs, Melbourne being quite unique in that there were 12 teams at the time from the one city and our national sport grew from the one city.
That was when I first got involved and fell in love with my football club, the North Melbourne Football Club. I got to meet a lot of the players, the coaches and people behind the scenes and it was an amazing experience because there is a strong family-like atmosphere with our football clubs, there are a lot of volunteers who work behind the scenes and you get caught up in that.
One of the volunteers passed away not long ago, the club meant so much to him and he wanted his funeral service to be held at the club. All the players where there, as was everyone else involved with the club. I think it is moments like that which remind you how much they mean to so many people.
The club is currently in a predicament, the sport is expanding rapidly as a national sport and the body which runs the sport wants to move the club up to Queensland, to a high population growth area. Two of the twelve clubs in Melbourne have already moved/merged four new clubs have also been born in different states. There are economic pressure that will probably see more teams move and there is a lot of pressure on my club to move, but it just wont be the same thing.
Many of the supporters who don't want to see that fate happen are working to help save the club, working to find a way to secure a long-term future for the club. It wont be easy, not when the club is being offered hundreds of millions to pack up and move. If it moves I just don't think I would have any real attachment to it. The club was founded in 1869 and has rich history and help found the original competition. It would be a significant cultural loss to see the team become a franchise club on the other side of the country.
From a young age I was involved in football, either playing it at school or with amateur clubs and I spent a number of years in the St John Ambulance Brigade when I was young, an organisation that donated their services to provide first aid to public events. It was through St Johns that I got to spend a lot of time around football clubs, Melbourne being quite unique in that there were 12 teams at the time from the one city and our national sport grew from the one city.
That was when I first got involved and fell in love with my football club, the North Melbourne Football Club. I got to meet a lot of the players, the coaches and people behind the scenes and it was an amazing experience because there is a strong family-like atmosphere with our football clubs, there are a lot of volunteers who work behind the scenes and you get caught up in that.
One of the volunteers passed away not long ago, the club meant so much to him and he wanted his funeral service to be held at the club. All the players where there, as was everyone else involved with the club. I think it is moments like that which remind you how much they mean to so many people.
The club is currently in a predicament, the sport is expanding rapidly as a national sport and the body which runs the sport wants to move the club up to Queensland, to a high population growth area. Two of the twelve clubs in Melbourne have already moved/merged four new clubs have also been born in different states. There are economic pressure that will probably see more teams move and there is a lot of pressure on my club to move, but it just wont be the same thing.
Many of the supporters who don't want to see that fate happen are working to help save the club, working to find a way to secure a long-term future for the club. It wont be easy, not when the club is being offered hundreds of millions to pack up and move. If it moves I just don't think I would have any real attachment to it. The club was founded in 1869 and has rich history and help found the original competition. It would be a significant cultural loss to see the team become a franchise club on the other side of the country.