WHAT is the most popular sport in the Mildura municipality?
If you believe the Mildura Recreation Strategy 2021-31, it’s hockey.
Yes, I almost choked on my morning coffee, too, when I read that.
The council-endorsed report was compiled by Melbourne consultant Leisure Planners at a cost to Mildura ratepayers of $48,949, excluding GST.
“This is the only council strategy that addresses sport,” it said.
Well, that is not true as the Mildura Future Ready document has addressed how the new sporting precinct would cater for local sports and major events, along with a motorsport plan that has stalled.
According to the recreation strategy report’s authors, the “10 most popular sporting activities” in the Mildura LGA are (in order) hockey, off-road cycling, walking, football (Aussie rules), cricket, exercising the dog, netball, swimming, basketball and cycling (road/track).
By the numbers, hockey is not the most popular sport in our region.
The Sunraysia Hockey Association had about 600 participants, from seniors down to HookIn2Hockey, back in 2019, the last pre-pandemic complete season the report’s authors took into account.
Soccer, administered locally by Football Federation Sunraysia, had 730 participants across seniors and juniors while the Mildura Basketball Association had just under 1400.
The Sunraysia Football Netball League had about 2300 footballers in action each week in 2019 plus 250 Auskickers, as well as 1100 netballers hitting the court.
In the Millewa, there were about 600 registered footballers and netballers.
In 2022, the numbers for footy and netball remained steady, while hockey struggled to maintain its pre-pandemic participation levels.
There were 2228 footballers and 1080 registered netballers playing in the SFNL last year, while the Millewa had 289 footballers and 300 netballers.
The big mover since 2019, in terms of popularity, has been basketball.
Its participation rates since moving out to the Mildura Sporting Precinct just over a year ago have gone from 1400 to about 2000, with 293 teams competing in the summer domestic competitions.
This puts basketball nipping at the heels of footy as the top dog of sport in the region.
Indeed, the growing popularity of basketball is a national trend.
The council’s 10-year strategy is likely to serve hockey well, but will it be at the expense of desperately needed upgrades to its facilities that cater for football?
Let’s take the Mildura Recreation Reserve as an example.
Seriously, the change rooms and two-storey building (where the local harness-racing club is based) at No.1 Oval need bulldozing.
There have been a few master plans that looked at redeveloping Mildura Recreation Reserve, including in 2014 and 2009, but nothing has come of them.
I know the ship has sailed on tapping into the massive pot of money that has gone into MSP, but this is where more boutique facilities could have been created for individual sports to make them more playable.
Instead of trying to please several sports at the one location (MSP), why wasn’t there any forethought into getting at least one or two spot on from the get-go?
The playing surface on the premier oval is fantastic. But there are too many shortcomings around it, especially in relation to undercover seating.
It needs a proper grandstand, not some terraces for a couple of hundred people that are yet to be built.
And don’t get me started again on the seating debacle inside the stadium.
Anyway, I’ve digressed. Let’s get those Melbourne consultants on the phone to tell them football and basketball, followed by netball, are the premier sports in our region.
Motorsport, which didn’t crack the top 10 list in their report, needs to be considered as a popular sport, too.
Let’s hope it emerges well from the flood shutdown at Olympic Park and the logistical issues at Timmis Speedway.
The out-of-town consultants and council are living in a parallel universe if they think hockey rules the roost locally.
Just watch how many punters rock up to the Dreamtime at the P representative footy day on April 15, a week before the SFNL and Millewa seasons begin.
The SFNL home-and-away footy and netball clashes also attract big crowds, as does the Mildura Heat basketball teams in the Big V statewide competition, which tips off in mid-March.
If the Heat women make the Division 1 women’s grand final in coach James Madigan’s final year of charge of his much-loved team, there won’t be a spare seat at the Hothouse.
As for hockey, their crowds are odds-on to be a small fraction of what footy, netty and basketball attract in 2023.
I wish the sport well, but hockey is playing in the backwaters compared to the big three.
EUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM
LET’S hope the debacle surrounding the failed Robinvale Euston footy club application for $434,000 in funding for an upgrade of Euston Football Oval gets sorted out as soon as possible.
This will be the second straight year that an SFNL game won’t be played at the Euston Football Oval after it was deemed unsafe for play.
As part of the 2015 merger between Robinvale and Euston, it was agreed the Eagles would play two games a year at the former home of Millewa club Euston Bombers, where the ground now looks more suitable for cows than footballers.
A communication breakdown between the Euston advisory and the troubled, under-administration Balranald Council saw Euston miss out on any funding in round 5 of the NSW Government’s Stronger Country Communities Fund.
It’s a crying shame for the Euston community.
No wonder the Eagles and Euston’s community leaders are seething over a process that saw Balranald pick up most of the grant money.
While Euston was brushed, the Balranald Football Netball Club was awarded $418,000 for improvements to its facilities and the Balranald Motorcycle Club got the nod for $118,000 in safety upgrades.
There were technicalities in why Euston’s application was rejected.
However, I hope the local and state government’s bureaucrats can work constructively with Euston’s bid team to get a positive outcome for the small riverside community.
They pay their rates and taxes just as Balranald residents do, making them entitled to their fair share of the funding pie to upgrade the town’s facilities.
