Build-up reveals sporting passion

Anyone doubting whether regional sport maintains a profound role in rural and regional society should think again.

Sport, especially the ‘religions’ of football and netball, continue to underpin and spearhead the collective fabric of many communities.

All anyone need do to gain an understanding of this phenomenon is make a weekly call to club coaches, officials or fans across the region.

The Weekly Advertiser research into its football and netball countdown series is revealing that every part of the Wimmera, Mallee and Grampians is humming with expectation and in various states of preparation.

With mainstream winter sport fast approaching, the enthusiasm and passion of community volunteers and the work they do for their sporting clubs is astonishing.

We can only guess the enormous social value of this volunteer effort.

Many communities are constantly seeing the number of people in their towns dwindling and cling desperately for a sense of identify.

The raw truth is that many of us need to barrack for something.

It is a commonly held belief in some rural areas that when a town loses its footy team it also loses much of its soul. This might seem a bit over the top, but how do you measure the loss of such a high level of unpaid and invaluable social work that a sporting club often provides?

Circumstances are obviously different for each club in regards to issues such as coaches, recruits, sponsors and workers, but in many ways they are also the same. All see their clubs as critically important to their respective communities and simply having enough numbers to field teams is a general priority. Having a successful team is a bonus.

The significance of football-netball, and to lesser extent other sporting pursuits, has reached a point where researchers can often measure the evolutionary history of a locality by its ability to field representative sporting teams.

Circumstances might have changed with the ongoing development of entertainment technology – we might simply not be doing what we used to do and are pursuing other interests.

But that’s far from the message we’re receiving in our neck of the woods.

From busy regional centres to tiny localities desperately clinging to their identities through their sporting representatives – all are counting up their numbers to make sure their clubs can, firstly, survive and secondly, be competitive.