Our proud team will never say die

Craig Martin tells the story of a footy club being reborn from the ground up

THIS year in the Tasmanian State League, the North Hobart Football Club is back on the field of play.

And I know how much joy that has brought to many Demons’ fans, young and old.

In January last year, I wrote a Talking Point piece for the Mercury arguing for the return of the mighty North Hobart Football Club.

At that time it had played as Hobart City and Hobart City Demons since 2013 as a result of a forced merger with the Hobart Football Club.

Hobart had pulled out of that forced merger in 2013 to retain its identity in the Southern Football League yet North Hobart was not permitted to have its name or traditional red and blue jumper back.

In that piece I said that “playing as North Hobart again is an opportunity to deliver new members, supporters, optimism, revenue and sponsors”.

The reason I believed this would occur is because North Hobart is a famous, muchloved and highly respected footy club.

Established in 1881, we have won 28 premierships — making us one of Australia’s most successful footy clubs.

Over 55 North Hobart players have gone on to play in the VFL/AFL.

Today I emphasise my enormous thanks and gratitude for all the support we have received from so many magnificent people — not only in assisting us to win back the name and colours of the club (won via a members’ vote 371-118 in October last year) — but also to demonstrate how perilous it is to change famous sporting club brands and particularly to do so with no consultation and to have change forced on a club.

In November last year, when we took over administration of the club, we were left with a debt of more than $100,000. We have now paid back all our creditors and have money in the bank.

We are working very hard toward a sound financial position for the club, including achieving a profit for the current year.

At the time of my opinion piece in 2017, the Hobart City Demons had about 150 members, excluding players.

We now sit at over 440 members after just three games, excluding players.

We would love to get to 600 members this season so please join up so you are truly invested in the club.

We have got a $300,000 funding commitment from the State Government for which we are very grateful to upgrade infrastructure at North Hobart Oval.

We believe we have put forward a great case to host the North Melbourne/ Tasmanian AFLW matches to be played in the South at North Hobart oval next year when the team commences playing.

We have an outstanding coach in Richard “Bear” Robinson, a great coaching group — Aaron Vince, Hugh Williams, Jim Ransom, Ray Becker and Luke Curtain — a great footy department headed by director Peter Fisher, great support people, including James Rice and Ian Walker, and a very exciting young playing group that we are very proud of and which we will get games into this year with a view to the future.

Such is our confidence in coach Robinson that we have extended his contract for another year to the end of 2019, with an option to continue on after 2019.

We have 16 of our kids in AFL Tasmania academy squads, the most of any club in the state.

That said, we are, however, already taking steps to recruit more mature-aged, bigger-bodied experienced players to help our young playing group next season and to complement our football program.

We have integrated our women’s team into the club and, for the first time, the club has a women’s football director on our board. We love having the girls as part of our club and they train at North Hobart Oval on Thursday nights and have dinner with all other players after training.

They are going along very nicely too, recording two big wins to start the season.

We are here for the long game and we know there will be a bit of pain and potholes along the way but we have a plan and we will stick to it.

In the past few years, playing as Hobart City, the club had no major cash sponsor. We now gratefully have sponsors worth in excess of $40,000 a year.

As all North Hobart people know our motto is “never say die”. We have begun a great journey together and the future is looking good.

To all our magnificent people, please stay the course and we will, together, make North Hobart great again.

Thanks to everyone supporting us and keep your eye on the Red and the Blue.