General News
14 June, 2024
Sports comment: put pulse into King's Birthday Weekend
FOR sports-mad communities across the Loddon, it was a very sorry King’s Birthday weekend - not a single match of football or netball at one of nine recreation reserves in the shire. North Central league scheduled road trips for Wedderburn - where...
FOR sports-mad communities across the Loddon, it was a very sorry King’s Birthday weekend - not a single match of football or netball at one of nine recreation reserves in the shire.
North Central league scheduled road trips for Wedderburn - where the first home game of the season was played only the previous weekend - and Boort. Loddon Valley had a general bye.
The chance to showcase community sport in Loddon communities was a missed opportunity that a bit of planning could have created a showcase event.
That could have been a North Central match on Loddon soil, attracting an augmented crowd of Loddon Valley fans or from among the many hundreds holidaying in the region on the last long weekend before the AFL Grand Final public holiday at the end of September.
Or Loddon Valley could have scheduled one game, those two clubs take the bye the week before or after in creating a split round. Throw in special activities, generate an even greater sense of community and family and the atmosphere would have been greater than any other “special” rounds in a season.
Loddon Valley and North Central leagues should get their heads together before settling on the 2025 season draw to make sure a large part of regional Victoria is not again left without football, netball and, in the case of North Central, hockey, on the King’s Birthday weekend.
If scheduling just one game in the Loddon Shire on that long weekend is beyond being made to happen, look at other options.
Could the AFL Central Victoria gala day held the previous weekend be shifted to the King’s Birthday and brought out into the Loddon Shire?
Whatever the answers, the solutions will only strengthen local sport, engage more people and build profile for local leagues and clubs.
Winter sport is at the heart of every community in the Loddon Shire and last weekend that beat was silent. Let’s hope there is a strong pulse in 2025.
.- CHRIS EARL