Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is my great pleasure to talk today about the 150th anniversary of the Kapunda Football Club, the Bombers, who are from my home town, and the anniversary dinner. In that club I played just a single season of under-17's football. It was a pretty desperate year for the town to have to draft a player like me as I was not the best footballer when I played in 1989. We won one game all year against Gawler Central, so I always cherish going to Gawler Central oval and reminiscing about that single victory. Our coach, Ducky Ryan, talked a bit about that year at the dinner.

The Kapunda Bombers is one of the oldest clubs in South Australia at 150 years. I have a great book by Paul McCarthy, who was my old year 12 legal studies teacher, and someone who, I think, first told me about this parliament and taught me about the way our government was structured. He was something of an inspiration for me to come here, although I know he would be somewhat distressed to hear me saying that because he does not like receiving praise. He and Danny Menzel did a great job on the night describing of the Kapunda Bombers' great history. It has a treasured role in my home town. Like so many country towns, it is the social life and your weekends revolve around the footy and the netball. Certainly this is the case in Kapunda. I lived across the road from Dutton Park and every Saturday morning it was a hive of activity.

It was a really great night with 400 or 500 people at the Kapunda trotting track. It got a bit cold towards the end of the evening but everybody really enjoyed it. I should pay tribute to Matt Ryan, the club president, and to Andrew Hollis-Hayward, who was the emcee, and to the many other speakers on the night. I also pay tribute to Kapunda's greatest football player, Jack Dermody, who is described in the book. He was a state captain and a great champion of Port Power, or the Port Adelaide Football Club as it was then constituted.

It was a great night and it is a great club. I look forward to going, maybe in another 10 or 20 years' time, to another anniversary dinner when we will have even more history to put into the book, First Use of the Ball, which describes all of Kapunda's achievements over the years since it was first founded.

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