Louise Miller-Frost (Boothby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's with sadness that I rise to pay my respects to a local Boothby community leader, Michael John Hargreaves, known as Mick. Mick passed away after a short illness on 10 November this year. Like so many Boothby residents, Mick migrated from England in the 1970s and settled in the Marion area with his wife, Carole, and their three children. But it was Mick's long-term involvement in junior soccer in South Australia that endeared him to so many people in Boothby.

His involvement with the sport started when he began coaching his son John at Ascot Park Primary School in 1978. From there grew his involvement with the Southern Districts Junior Soccer Association. The Southern Districts Junior Soccer Association organise soccer competitions for young people, attending over 50 primary schools in the southern metropolitan areas of Adelaide. Mick joined the committee organising the association in 1979, and he stayed. He was elected chairman and eventually changed to president in 1998, and he held that role until his passing this year.

In the 2022 season, around 2,600 primary school children played soccer on a Saturday morning across southern Adelaide all under Mick's longstanding leadership, and it's this scale of contribution that saw Mick awarded an OAM, an Order of Australia Medal, for his contribution to our community. (Time expired)