It would be fair to say that few people blinked when the Campbelltown City Kangaroos won this year’s Group Six grand final.
Among those few would have been club director Alex Melville, who’s put his heart and soul into rewinding the glory days at our historic footy club.
The way he tells it, the Kangaroos and Campbelltown were “this close’’ to getting a team in the elite competition level of the NSW Rugby League back in the 1970s.
Instead, and for many reasons, they faded away for almost 30 years.
But now they’re back with a vengeance, and I reckon there’s a bit of a Group Six dynasty in them if they can keep the current core group of administrators, coaches and players together for a decent period of time.
If they do, the community and business support they currently enjoy will only grow in the years ahead.
The thing that many people forget is that the level of competition the Kangaroos are in is very important to community life.
Same goes for clubs in the other codes, from the Campbelltown Harlequins in rugby union, Macarthur Rams in soccer and the Ghosts in cricket.
Very few local businesses can afford to take up a sponsorship with an NRL club such as the Wests Tigers, who have just announced they will be playing three games in Campbelltown next year.
[social_quote duplicate=”no” align=”default”]The problem with the elite level is that these days there is very little connection between players and fans.[/social_quote]
But when you drop down to Group Six rugby league or even the Sydney Shield where the East Campbelltown Eagles have been very successful, it is much easier for the fans to really feel like a part of the team.
Having covered both the Wests Tigers 2005 premiership victory run and a number of triumphs by our “little clubs’’ such as the Harlequins and the Campbelltown Blues AFL club, you can guess which I found more satisfying, both as a journo and a local fan.
That’s why I say that these sub elite clubs always contribute more to enriching our community life than those on the rung above them.
It’s important local councils bear that in mind when they are deciding how to allocate their resources -our rates – there may be more glamour in elite levels but less direct benefit for the community that’s paying for it.
That’s also probably why hardly anybody blinked when council spent $700,000 on an all weather, artificial turf at Lynwood Park, home of the Macarthur Rams.
I don’t remember even one person saying, wow, spending all that money on a team that plays in the third division.
The question for councils is how much these clubs contribute to community life, and the answer is a lot.
Fiona Melville