Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to talk about a sport that is growing in my electorate—that is, the sport of soccer—or, as some people in the soccer clubs would like it to be known, football. There are four clubs in my electorate that are growing exponentially. I want to talk about each of those and then talk about the common issues that they are facing. Firstly, there is the Noarlunga United team, commonly known as the Bulldogs. At the moment that club has a membership of 170 juniors, 50 seniors and 30 amateurs. This club is at maximum capacity. I was very pleased to be able to go down and briefly visit Noarlunga United on the weekend. I saw their reserve team performing very well, and I am informed that the other teams also performed very well on the weekend. The club was founded in 1968, and moved to their current location at Wilfred Taylor Reserve in 1973. The volunteers there are very proud of their club and have worked for many years to build it up.

The second club in my area, and a great rival of Noarlunga United, are the Seaford Rangers. At the moment they have 16 teams training on two grounds. That is a very strong contingent. The club has a very strong family focus and was founded in the seventies. Once again, I have been lucky to visit the club and see the strong passion that both the volunteers and the players have. They have informed me that they have a big game coming up on Saturday against Enfield. If they win they will go from fourth to third and qualify for the play offs. So I certainly wish them the very best in that game.

We also, in the local area, have the South Adelaide Soccer Club known as the Panthers. They have a total of 20 teams and about 300 players. That is also a huge club. They also have the Pink Panthers, which are two junior and two senior women’s teams, encouraging women in that sport. I certainly think they do a great job in that.

Finally, there is the Cove Soccer Club that has many junior teams—and they are certainly growing—as well as senior teams. They do a great job at developing their senior teams as well as their junior teams. One theme all these clubs has is that they have grown beyond their capacity. They are having to turn young people, mainly in the junior areas, away. This is a big concern when we want to get young people active and involved in their local community. We want to provide access for those people. I would urge, and I look forward to working with, these clubs to ensure that these young people do have access and are able to play the sport that they love.

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