Gunnedah is in the midst of spike in quality athletes, fuelled by excellent coaching, and would benefit greatly by the now-defunct Sports Council being relaunched, respected professional coach John Hickey has said.
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Hickey said he “created” the original Sports Council but it folded after he left Gunnedah in 2015 to coach in the Northern Territory. It had run for “about six years”, he added.
Now back in town, Hickey said the council would serve “as a sounding board for every sporting organisation in Gunnedah”.
Its functions, he said, would include making submissions to council about “what might be needed next” sporting wise, and sourcing grants for sporting organisations – “to look for young athletes that might need a hand, and see if we can find a way to facilitate that”.
“It might be through equipment or money,” he added.
“But it’s not along the lines where we would be handling money … it’s really just a question of making a contribution to the Gunnedah community, in holding that awards night [and] making sure that the whole community can have a say.”
The Donnelly Fields was a “prime example” of an achievement of the previous council, he said, adding: “That was designed by the Sports Council.”
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Hickey – the new Gunnedah Bulldogs league coach, and the full-time Swimming Gunnedah head coach – said the council would play an instrumental role in ensuring the town’s sports environment was fertile enough to help keep youths out of trouble. He was “100 per cent” committed to re-establishing it.
“I’ve spoken to the mayor, Jamie Chaffey, about it – about how we can get Gunnedah up and running,” he said.
“Any time you drop off coaching junior athletes in this town, it’s like any other town in Australia – you’re gonna have problems with young kids. Young kids need to be focused, they need constant activity, and [if] you take it away from them, you’re gonna cause yourself problems.
“But the other side of it is, we want kids reaching for higher levels all the time. We’ve got a history of people who have gone from Gunnedah and represented Australia in different sports [including Hickey, himself, in triathlon].
“And it’s something that I’d like to continue … the Sports Council can help in all those areas, plus the ongoing continuance of sporting facilities, which adds to the whole structure of the town and makes everything better. We’ve got good facilities now, and there’s no reason why we should rest on our laurels.”
Hickey said the council would help “to build a bigger picture” and might inspire “the next kid to get up and have a go”.
A committee would steer the council, and would include Gunnedah Shire councillors, he said.
Cr Chaffey said “council would be open to the conversation” regarding the relaunching of the Sports Council.
“To recognise the efforts of those volunteers, and, of course, those sports people in our community is something we have done well in the past,” he said.
“And we should certainly consider [continuing to do that] moving forward.”
