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Sunday 19 August 2007

Football Number One in Canberra

Football has more junior players than Union, League and AFL put together in Canberra.

Getting this player base behind an A-League team will be a challenge.

But imagine the challenge of trying to get a team going without such playing numbers in the town.

The official figures for Junior Football is 11,709 boys and girls.

Football further cements its spot as the national capital’s highest participated sport.

In 2006, the 10,000 mark was broken, this season has seen a 7.65% increase in registered juniors which equates to a further 832 players taking to ACT football fields with 8605 boys and 3104 girls making up the numbers to surpass the 11,000 hurdle for the first time in Canberra’s junior football history.

Over the past 10 years junior football registrations has a growth of 69%, in 1997 there were 6918 registered players took part compared to today’s 11,709.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

hmmm dont get many comments do ya mate?

well i suppose ill make a start

I reckon it would be great to have a football team in the nations capital.

Only thing is the facilities.. what are they like? i know you can use the rugby stadium but i honestly dont like our football teams sharing these pitches especially when the rugby season is in-flight. It often results in bumpy uneven grounds which is atrocious to play on let alone watch....

its a real problem i reckon..

anyway

Eamonn said...

no don't get many comments just assume it's because everyone agrees with me..that's it isn't it:)

anyway Canberra for A-League team, s'pose we'd play at Canberra stadium, but the Raider are always out before September therefore if we have first game away from home pitch should be perfect.....Brumbies don't start until Feb or March so pich is finished with.

Facilites are great we just need some money, a team, and community support turning up each week

thanks for your post:)

Anonymous said...

A-League team in Canberra is a good idea because it is the capital city of this country and it should be representing itself in the Australian League. Look all over the world in the various leagues, which capital city doesn't have a club or two! You'll be hard pressed to find a league that doesn't have a club team representing the capital city of the country.

I think the FFA took the wrong direction in going for Wellington. This year it could prove to be a success with their Brasilian imports and financial backing, but I still think NZ will always be a rugby heartland and cricket will always be a 2nd sport to them and considering the population of the whole country, it'll be quite difficult to get big support for football down there especially when the NZ national team are struglling itself. Like in Australia, when our NT went to the WC it boosted popularity of the sport, I think something like that in NZ needs to happen as well but what are the chances of a Kiwi team making the World Cup?

I think Wellington are a good team in fact I got them in my top 4 for this season but a good football team with barely any crowd! It'll be hard for them to sustain in the long term financially as ticket sales won't be enough and empty stadiums and lack of sponsorship as a result of low crowds will prove difficult for a Wellington team to stay in the A-League regardless of them making the finals every season.

In 2010 I'd say add a team at the Gold Coast, Townsville, Canberra and 2nd team in Melbourne as I think if Melbourne get more crowds this season, I bet you more will want a 2nd team and that would get decent crowds as well.