Limestone Coast FL Discussion 2024

[western royboy]

You are bang on the money.
My 13-year old son has stopped playing footy after playing it since Auskick as a five-year old.
His reason was that he had played footy for long enough and wasn't enjoying it anymore.

Sadly I know I am - but I’m perceived as being “negative”.

The true sadness is kids like your lad retire at a young age, having played a million Micky Mouse games…but never actually playing the real thing so to speak and that is a tragedy.

The AFL or Cricket Australia don’t care..they’ve done enough to have them as consumers for life.

Or so they think

 

[MortlockWatcher]

Compare my son to me. I started at Under 10s and went until midway through Under 14s after my father saw my Year 9 mid year marks.

By the time I finished school, I realised my inabilities as a player so instead volunteered as club field umpire for our club's reserves for a number of years, starting a 30-odd year involvement with the game in almost every match day role imaginable (fill-in player, umpire, runner, reserves coach, assistant coach, water boy timekeeper, scoreboard attendant, canteen helper, commentator, around the grounds reporter, writing articles for football records ... pretty much anything except club doctor and trainer). Nowadays, I am less involved with going to games and getting involved but instead I am researching and writing books about some of the country leagues here in WA.

I can see just through my kids and people slightly older than them that when they quit they aren't getting involved helping around a club.

The bigger problem in the 70s, 80s and 90s was the drop-off between junior and senior football (aged 16 or 17), but some former players still found their way to a local club, either watching or helping out.

I am seeing that drop-out level dropping to 12, 13 or 14 and there will be less of a chance of these people getting involved with clubs at the end of their teens because they are not wired the same way as previous generations.

 

[western royboy]

Compare my son to me. I started at Under 10s and went until midway through Under 14s after my father saw my Year 9 mid year marks.

By the time I finished school, I realised my inabilities as a player so instead volunteered as club field umpire for our club's reserves for a number of years, starting a 30-odd year involvement with the game in almost every match day role imaginable except club doctor and trainer. Nowadays, I am less involved with going to games and getting involved but instead I am researching and writing books about some of the country leagues here in WA.

I can see just through my kids and people slightly older than them that when they quit they aren't getting involved helping around a club.

The bigger problem in the 70s, 80s and 90s was the drop-off at the game between junior and senior football (aged 16 or 17), but some former players still found their way to a local club, either watching or helping out.

I am seeing that drop-out level dropping to 12, 13 or 14 and there will be less of a chance of these people getting involved with clubs at the end of their teens because they are not wired the same way as previous generations.

I grew up in a small country town in Western Vic. Neither of my parents participated in any club sport in my lifetime. I was obsessed with sport.

I played anything and everything.

Cricket and Football were my loves but organised competitions started at Under 16 level so I had to wait. “Mini League” was an informal version of what has become Auskick only better because the lads who ran it could actually play or had been good players. From 9-11.30 every Saturday we did skills for two hours in age groups then played a scratch match game. Usually blue & whites v the rest

During the week there was Basketball, Squash and on Saturday’s Tennis.

When I got to High School or just before it I started playing cricket and then football.

I have played virtually every cricket season since.

I was fortunate to be ok at footy despite my background and got to a reasonable level playing senior football at 16 and playing a couple of seasons in Melbourne before a break of a few years when interstate before eventually playing my last two years back at my original club. I retired at 25 when my club merged with another entity that took my club further away from where I was based. 10 years later I coached juniors and Auskick in the twin that I lived in and 10 years later I started field umpiring in the league that I played in as a kid.

What I am seeing now is a massive drop off in volunteers and increasing demands of juniors.

With the greatest respect we simply do not have the coaches of the requisite quality to teach the kids properly and the need to win overrides any long term aims.

I was lucky to grow up in my time period. I was taught the basics very well. Kids don’t get that these days.

 

[RudyCt]

Why is Naracoorte wishful thinking?, If they want to join what is stopping them

I’m wondering if it’s more just wishful thinking from the Limestone coast. Definitely Naracoorte is the team that would be the most welcome.

Totally agree. I think Naracoorte would be a good "get" for the new league, but I'm not seeing it. Unless they can be forced and I don't believe that's how things work. Penola made sense (they were a fringe dweller in the KNT and a former WBFL club to boot). Plus, I believe all kinds of sweeteners were thrown at them so it's no surprise and good luck to them.

 

[Grimsey]

Totally agree. I think Naracoorte would be a good "get" for the new league, but I'm not seeing it. Unless they can be forced and I don't believe that's how things work. Penola made sense (they were a fringe dweller in the KNT and a former WBFL club to boot). Plus, I believe all kinds of sweeteners were thrown at them so it's no surprise and good luck to them.

Don’t think they would be forced
But Kntfl are made of up something like 150+ players travelling from Adelaide
I assume Penola and Naracoorte are not recruiting from Adelaide so that leaves 150 players from Adelaide feeding 7 clubs
SANFL players make more money playing in the KNTFL
Not sure how sustainable this is