By Cam Lucadou-Wells
AFL Victoria is bent on reclaiming its sport’s former Greater Dandenong heartland.
North Dandenong Sharks Junior Football Club is currently “in recess” due to a lack of numbers but AFL Victoria says the tide is turning.
About 60 kids went to a recent school holiday clinic at the Sharks’ home ground at Lois Twohig Reserve in Dandenong North.
In the past year, the local Auskick junior program has soared from 10 participants to about 40.
Importantly, parents are also signing up to help run the junior club – which AFL Victoria hopes to resurrect next year.
AFL Victoria outer south metro football development manager Gary Brown says free footy clinics, after-school Auskick programs and multilingual fliers are part of the promotional push.
For years, Aussie Rules had been the dominant sport in Dandenong – at least among its traditional Anglo-Saxon cohort.
Now AFL Victoria was “coming from a long way back”, with a critical need to reach out to new and emerging communities, Mr Brown concedes.
“More than 80 per cent of people here are from a non-English speaking background. And this demographic is increasing.
“That’s made it more difficult.”
Kids are quickly impressed by the dynamic game but their parents also need to be lured to the sport, he says.
“The kids are loving it – that’s what I’m finding.
“We ran a lot of after-school Auskick lessons. The main idea with that was to connect with the parents after school.
“It gave them their first exposure to the game, and resulted in getting so many parents to come down to the (recent) clinic.
“It gives us great hope to get this junior football club up and going again.”
