Armstrong Creek Football Club plans for a senior team by 2030

One of the fastest growing junior football clubs in the state has declared when it would like a senior team on the park.

Jeremy Cameron at Armstrong Creek FC’s under-9s training in 2023. Picture: Mark Wilson

The burgeoning Armstrong Creek Football Club hopes to have a senior team on the park by 2030 as it experiences “monumental” growth since the pandemic.

The club was founded in 2018, but three years later, it was in danger of going under amid the pandemic with an urgent meeting with AFL Barwon called.

However, a small band of volunteers would roll up the sleeves and usher in what junior co-ordinator Luke McNamara describes as “exponential growth” in participation which has reportedly caught the eye of La Trobe University and AFL Victoria’s participation co-ordinator Hannah Quinn.

He said the Sharks now had the only all-female Superkick – for kids aged seven to 12 – in the state, and the largest cohort for the program in the northwest region.

“The AFL and Latrobe University actually have been coming to our Auskick sessions to see how it all runs,” McNamara said.

An Armstrong Creek junior gets a kick during the recent lightning premiership carnival at Portarlington in March. Picture: Mark Wilson

“Armstrong Creek as a junior club would be, and the AFL have reiterated this, one of the fasted growing clubs in Victoria.

“(We’ve had) exponential growth of a new club coming out of covid, which is just posting monumental numbers.”

With participation numbers booming, McNamara was regularly asked when Armstrong Creek would put a senior team on the park.

“Setting up a seniors team is a big project and one that’s not recommended that is rushed ... it takes a lot of money and resources to field a competitive senior team,” he said.

“The Surf Coast Suns is five years ahead of us and they’re just fielding a team next year.

“At the moment our ambition, especially with the growth of our junior program, that we would see it as still, probably three to five years away, but something we would definitely want up in the next five years.”

Geelong superstar Jeremy Cameron with an Armstrong Creek junior in 2023. Picture: Mark Wilson

While the club has netted a $600,000 City of Greater Geelong for lights for its second oval, it needs a proper pavilion, its own liquor licence and a healthy bank balance to fund a senior team.

“You need a good chunk of money in your kitty in order to attract and pay players on your list to sort of meet those salary cap demands,” he said.

“They’re some of the issues you’d need to iron out first.”

McNamara, who won AFL Barwon’s Junior Coach of the Year in 2023, believes Armstrong Creek is swimming against the tide, with other footy clubs battling to find enough juniors.

“We’re facing a different challenge, the inner city clubs their biggest challenge is not having enough to fill teams, in a lot of cases,” he said.

There has been an explosion in the number of girls playing footy at Armstrong Creek. Picture: Mark Wilson

“And we’re facing the opposite, where we’ve got a very small team of dedicated volunteers and if anything, we’re a bit overwhelmed by the prospect of the amount of teams we’re potentially going to have over the next few years and the ability to resource all of that.”

The club has grown from just a handful of teams to 17 with 68 female participants across under-10s up to 16s.

“Which is an absolute explosion from having like one under-9s team,” he said.

“We’ve got (approximately) 320 junior participants all up ... it’s up there with Ocean Grove and its bigger than Grovedale and Newtown and most other established clubs.”

Meanwhile, the number of Auskick participants has increased by almost 30 per cent over the past 12 months to 230 — one of the biggest in Victoria.

Youngster Noah Dunscombe, who was part of Armstrong Creek in the early days as a “frontier club” with one team, is captaining the under-14s and will be the first to play 100 games for the Sharks this weekend.

McNamara was proud the club was able to respond after that meeting with AFL Barwon heading into the 2022 season.

“There was a very real possibility of shutting it down,” he said.

“There was only a small handful of volunteers and a few teams and we felt like we were really up against it all.

“We thought we’d dig deep and try to get some kids on the field ... going into 2022.”

The AFL and La Trobe University was contacted for comment.

Originally published as Armstrong Creek Football Club plans for a senior team by 2030