Salisbury Football Club scrapes together for season 2022, warns of long-term devastation for northern suburb sport

The future of local footy is in jeopardy as the pandemic forces players to prioritise work according to a club which only narrowly avoided a 2022 recess.

An Adelaide Footy League club has warned many clubs around the state may suffer long-term after it had to scrape a senior side together for season 2022.

Just days after Smithfield withdrew for the second straight year, the Salisbury Football Club has barely managed to build an A Grade team for its division five campaign.

The club only has six players from last year’s squad and has drawn on its lower teams for numbers.

Football director Grant De Bais said an already testing climate to maintain a club had become more challenging during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Salisbury won the division 5 B Grade flag in 2019 and had established a strong club through the ranks. Now, they're struggling to fill a team. Picture: Salisbury Football Club

“It’s already tough for us to compete with others, with more money being involved at a local level, and it has become a bigger challenge to run things during the Covid period,” De Bais said.

“A lot of our players and volunteers work 40-hour weeks and need to prioritise work over footy, and the work that has to go into footy with added protocols to be enforced and maintained is a lot.”

Amid its pre-season struggles, the club has also had to discontinue its C Grade team and its women’s team.

De Bais said this was a great disappointment for the Magpies.

“It sucks a bit. We’ve been at the forefront for women’s footy for a while now but haven’t been able to field a team due to losing nearly half a side to the SANFL and other commitments.”

Salisbury has been forced to sideline its women's team for 2022 after a lack of numbers on the park over pre-season. Picture: Salisbury Football Club

Along with Smithfield bowing out, Para Hills and Westminster OS have pulled their C Grade sides.

De Bais said there was now long-term concern for many clubs, especially those based in Adelaide’s north.

“Look at the demographic in the North compared to other areas. It’s quite working class and work and even weekend work is way more important for families,” he said.

“A lot of players are contractors or self-employed and they can’t go without working for two weeks if they have Covid – the risk you run is high at the footy where there are hundreds of people.

“There’s definitely concern, with money a bigger factor now and Covid continuing, a lot of smaller clubs will die out and the bigger ones survive.”

Ryan Hocking and Dwayne Nisbet of Smithfield Football Club. There is great concern many more local SA clubs could follow the Panthers into recess in the future due to the challenge of money and Covid. Picture: Kelly Barnes

Patrick Walker – chief of the Australia Sport Foundation – said with the recent Covid upsurge in SA, local clubs may continue to suffer similar to those in Eastern states.

“There’s been a steep decline in participation nationwide and around 43 per cent of sporting clubs we have info from reported their biggest missing cohort was young adults children, so there is concern about the future of clubs,” he said.

“There’s definitely reluctance from volunteers and players due to Covid and the workload is much bigger now too.

“Nine-thousand community clubs we’ve surveyed nationwide, which equates to 1,000 in SA, feared for their future. Imagine that many communities without sporting clubs, it’s a huge hit.”