As the SANFL searches for its new place in a new century, will it be female touch that makes the difference?
SANFL football is searching for its place in the new world of Australian football. The game built by men in the 20th century could be redefined by women in this era.
SUE Dewing is more than impressive. The Sturt Football Club boss — the first woman to lead an SANFL club — also may have finally delivered the “light bulb moment” for Australian football’s oldest competition.
“The SANFL,” says Dewing, “is the best-kept secret in Australia.”
So is Dewing who should have been on an AFL headhunting list by now to fill a critical role in “club land” where there needs to be a strong reminder that it is people — not money — who make clubs and the game.
Dewing took charge of the Double Blues — moving from the board to the front office — at the end of the 2013 SANFL season to create history in a sport defined and dominated by men.
“And I did not want to be the first woman in charge of a club that became extinct,” Dewing said. “Sturt was on life support ... it had 48 hours left in it.”
Four years on, Sturt is the SANFL premiership club, it has delivered four consecutive profits (with debt eased with significant contributions from reconnected fans) and is back where it belongs at the heartbeat of its Unley community.
And, most importantly, Dewing revived Sturt’s soul. She gave “ownership” of the club back to its fans. She empowered them to invest their time and effort in their club, be it with such simple — but meaningful — tasks such as painting a race or the changerooms. No Sturt player can take to the field at Unley without appreciating who they represent.
Dewing rolled up her sleeves. “I like to get involved,” she says.
Dewing has the “runs on the board” for not only saving a sporting entity in crisis, but also for making it thrive — and find a meaningful future. So at a time when the SANFL — as it celebrates its 140th anniversary — has so many questions of where it fits in the 21st century map of Australian football, Dewing’s vision for the game’s oldest competition cannot, should not and must not be ignored.
The game was built and dominated by men in the 20th century. Its way forward in this new age is with women. Diversity, growth and — critically — strength by including women, both on and off the field.
Dewing’s assessment of the fundamental shifts in SA football — in particular the SANFL landscape — changes a debate that has become lost in arguing about AFL reserves teams in the state league, admission prices and media coverage.
Dewing is realigning the focus.
“The AFL (with the advent of the Crows in 1991) changed SA football in the 1990s,” Dewing said. “We sat back and watched crowds diminish, membership numbers diminish ...
“Sturt’s age demographic is 54 ...,” adds Dewing, recognising those born in the 1960s make up the last generation to grow up in Adelaide knowing an SANFL clubs rather than the Crows and the Power or whichever AFL club is making the biggest impression in a new world of social media.
“So how do we bring the young children along (in the SANFL)? Women’s football will help do that. It is great for growth. It gets families involved ... and it reduces the age demographic at your club.”
Critically, in Dewing’s vision that has prompted Sturt to lobby hard for a women’s team in the start-up SANFL women’s competition, moving away from a male-dominated football structure brings growth in membership and corporate backing.
Dewing notes Sturt currently cannot — with only men’s football — lift its membership beyond the 3000-range. Sturt’s membership is currently 3802. She expects this to rise to 4000-plus if the Double Blues win an SANFL women’s league licence as the competition prepares to expand from four to six clubs.
“Even after winning a league premiership,” Dewing notes, “we can’t see our membership grow more. But with women’s football more than 4000 members will come.”
Dewing has two sponsors — “with significant money” — ready to put their business logos on the Sturt women’s jumpers.
Ultimately, the SANFL landscape would have Unley Oval on a Saturday put on a male under-age game, a women’s league match and a men’s league clash. The men’s reserves? It will be a throwback to the 1930s when the Bs were with the local amateur club — as Port Adelaide president David Koch remembers with his father at Semaphore Centrals.
And do not underestimate the power of growth in women’s football. In 2014, one in 50 women in SA were looking to play Australian football. It is now, after the advent of the AFLW on the national stage, one in 12. And it is not just a city phenomenon, as highlighted in Mount Gambier last week when a six-team women’s competition began.
The challenge to this model is redeveloping SANFL venues — with local council support — to offer facilities to meet the standards required for women’s teams, finding coaches and umpires and more volunteers to manage the game.
Growth ... and the new SANFL.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
IF you continue to do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got.
Crows coach DON PYKE proving he is not stuck on Plan A hoping for different results.
REALITY BITES
Multi-cultural Round
IT is another theme round - Multicultural Round.
Now, if each of the 18 AFL clubs were to represent a nation, how would the AFL world map look?
BRISBANE - New Zealand. Had its 15 minutes of fame.
COLLINGWOOD - United States. Big, still living off the achievements in a previous century, convinced it is powerful on a big stage - and with a loud president.
CARLTON - Greece. Consigned to ancient history.
ESSENDON - France. Never done anything wrong ... ever. Ever.
FREMANTLE - Argentina. And who needs Ross Lyon to remind all that there is no reason to cry?
GEELONG - Ireland. St Patrick. It’s all about Patrick.
GOLD COAST - Tonga. It is all about the beach and only the beach.
GWS - South Sudan. New on the map. Both created at the same time.
HAWTHORN - China. Big, relevant and not out of the picture for long.
MELBOURNE - England. Class structure just never fades. And like the English, invented a game but have become surpassed by so many others in that sport.
NORTH MELBOURNE - Wales. For all the Shinboner passion at Arden Street, the Kangaroos live in the shadow of grander empires.
RICHMOND - Kazakhstan. Confused? Check - it is the ninth biggest country in the world.
ST KILDA - Brazil. Join the Carnevale.
SYDNEY - Germany. After the great collapse as “South Melbourne” there new power from an industrious revolution and revival.
WEST COAST - Russia. And not just because of the Eagle link. More about crushing the personality out of any adventurous soul who ventures into the empire.
WESTERN BULLDOGS - Myanmar (also known as Burma). So many are still waiting for the return to Footscray.
And locally,
PORT ADELAIDE - Portugal. Small at home, big by colonisation with president David Koch looking east by tracing the steps of Vasco da Gama.
ADELAIDE - .... it is so tempting, but there are enough missiles being tested nearby. And they are very touchy at West Lakes these days.
Wicked web
MUST have been a nervous weekend for those in the Adelaide Football Club media division at West Lakes after they heard Crows chairman ROB CHAPMAN come off the long run up in the pre-game with radio FIVEaa last Friday.
In case you missed Chapman giving the media advice on how to rule up their newspaper pages, here is a recap.
Rolling up his sleeves to become a newspaper sub-editor, Chapman said: “I’d honestly thought we’d wake up to the headline on Wednesday morning that said, ‘First million-dollar contract for AFLW’.”
This is in reference to the Big Australian, BHP, putting up a $1 million, three-year sponsorship deal for the Crows AFLW team. There was a time when sporting clubs were grateful for any free plug on a sponsorship deal in the media. But this is a different era.
So what was the headline on the Crows’ website?
First there was: “AFLW: Bec’s back for 2018” in reference to premiership coach Bec Goddard (as expected) staying in the hot seat to defend her title as the AFLW’s best coach.
Five minutes later there was: “AFLW: BHP on board” and no mention of the million bucks in the story.
Could be some empty chairs at West Lakes soon ....
Footy show
NEVER ignore the customer nor the viewer - and certainly not the sponsors. It is the great lesson that needs to be taken up by the new team trying to save The Footy Show that is in recess awaiting the return of its founder, EDDIE McGUIRE.
A few months ago one high-profile panel member of The Footy Show was at a sponsors’ night. The call was made for feedback on how the show was coming across the small screen. The advertising client had not made it through all his views when the panel member turned and walked away ... No surprise then that the show lost its way when its leaders were not listening to the audience (a point some senior executives at Channel Nine also missed).
TWEET OF THE WEEK
SOME Tweets just resonate louder than others ...
Eddie (Betts) and I now share a lack of appendix. Not great news, but Ed will be sure to bounce back quickly.
Crows chief executive ANDREW FAGAN.
NOTE OF THE WEEK
COLLINGWOOD coach NATHAN BUCKLEY let his weekly press conference run for almost 15 minutes this week. Elsewhere, some AFL coaches are 15 minutes late to their media sessions - and then have their media minders hasten the end with the “last question” call because they have to be elsewhere.
michelangelo.rucci@news.com.au