COMMENT:
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In every state, every region and every town, community sport has its place.
It’s the glue that binds people in communities together and in some regard, the litmus test by which to measure a town’s prosperity.
But for how long will sport in regional and rural areas survive in sustainable numbers?
Falling membership across a multitude of sports has been happening for years.
It’s not discriminative in its locality either – from the east to the west, north and south, it’s happening everywhere but even more so in the bush.
Clubs are screaming that they don’t have the player participation like they used to and even forcing some to fold.
Club committees are the first to feel the strain, often unable to meet rising expectations to do more with less, just like in many other areas of our modern lives.
Folks want more club equipment but with less funds; more registration and insurance paperwork with less volunteer staff; more sport options with less players... the list goes on.
Sure there are many reasons behind the downward trend, not least the increasing diversity of recreational pursuits.
"Falling membership across a multitude of sports has been happening for years."
Kids are no longer limited the staple football or cricket code with which to explore their widening world.
As adults, never before have we had such choice to choose how we utilise our spare time and more often than not these days, it involves a screen of some description – be it on our phones, computers, televisions, you name it!
Not only that we’re being told over and over again to increase our activity to ward off the potentially fatal consequences of sedentary lives.....
But I digress.
What I’m trying to say, in a roundabout way, is this all contributes to reduced participation in sport.
Other factors are at play as well such as the local economy and industry.
Mining companies, as much as we like to bemoan them about their sometimes questionable environmental impacts, generally do funnel sizeable financial amounts toward community sport, without which many clubs in this day and age would likely not be able to survive.
In times of plenty, the numbers are good. But when industry moves on and that long-relied on funding source dries up, what then for the organisations which depend on it?
Change is inevitable and no-one is immune but you have to feel for those bearing the brunt of a shifting society, especially those clinging to a long revered Australian past-time such as sport to see them through the tough times.
How long participation in country sport lasts will be determined by many things but more than anything, it will depend on how the community supports those clubs which have long supported them.