Seismic shifts in demographics in Melbourne’s suburbs are threatening the survival of traditional local clubs

Massive demographic changes in Melbourne’s suburbs are threatening the survival of traditional footy powerhouses and now the race is on to attract the next generation of young players.

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA – MAY 1 2025 Japjot Kaur, Parwan Singh, Mehtab Singh, Jack Bacon, Gurabhay Singh Nagra, Emily Bacon and Solomon Semisi from the Hume Bombers football club. The club is only eight years old and was founded as a junior footy club exclusively for Indian families. It has been a raging success and they have launched their first senior team this season as well. Picture: Brendan Beckett

Seismic shifts in Melbourne’s demographic landscape are threatening the existence of local footy clubs in formerly stronghold suburbs and forcing AFL Victoria to implement new strategies to attract the next generation of junior players.

Cost-of-living pressures are also contributing to the trend of inner suburban clubs struggling to field junior teams in some of Melbourne’s biggest football leagues.

Leading social researcher Mark McCrindle said Melbourne’s changing demographic led the pack for Australian cities, owing to overseas migration.

“For the last decade it’s been the fastest-growing capital city,” McCrindle said.

“In fact, three quarters of the current growth is coming from overseas migration. With that growth, with the migration factor driving the population of Melbourne, it’s a far more culturally diverse population than it’s ever been before.

Eastern Football League club Nunawading has entered recess for this season. Picture: David Callow

“(For) the No. 1 sourced country of arrivals into Melbourne, China has just been overtaken in the last five years by India, so that tells us something of the growth and the future.”

Once a thriving corridor of Australian rules football, Melbourne’s east has been among the hardest hit.

Two proud clubs – Doncaster and Nunawading – have entered recess for 2025, unable to field senior men’s teams in the Eastern Football Netball League.

Doncaster will field just three junior sides this season, while Nunawading has none.

McCrindle said an ageing population coupled with young people being priced out of the eastern suburbs housing market was having an impact on footy’s participation numbers in the area.

“Starting with Doncaster, you’ve got a shrinking number of people per household which tells us you’ve got a bit of age and smaller families – looking at the mortgage rates and the percentage of people paying 30 per cent or more of their income on mortgages, it’s going up,” he said.

“If we look at the under-20s, teenagers and children, Doncaster is below the national and state average. By the time you get to the 55-plus, it’s above the state and national average. That tells us something of the changing demographic, and quite simply, families are finding affordability challenges there.

“Nunawading is not much different – the average number of children per household is 0.7, which highlights a lot of households there don’t have children. Of those with children, it’s 1.7, so you’re getting this trend of smaller families and starting families later – and those young families moving out.”

EFL club Doncaster has also entered recess for 2025. Picture: Field of View Photography

Two years shy of its centenary, Nunawading Football Club will survive this season through its senior women’s, under-19s and netball programs.

President Adrian Salanitri said it was imperative the senior men returned to action.

“We’ve got 100 years coming up and we want to be around for that,” he said.

“It’s been pretty tough, I’ve got to admit. The last four months have been pretty trying.”

Salanitri believes the club’s under-19s program – which has merged with neighbouring club Forest Hill this year – could form the nucleus of a senior men’s comeback.

“(They) are looking really promising and hopefully they’ll lead us back into a senior men’s side for next year,” he said.

The Lions won just four matches combined across the past three seasons and battled for more than a decade in the league’s lowest tier.

In his second year as Nunawading president, Salanitri said he took on the role with the club in a precarious position.

“I did, but I’m up for the challenge and I don’t back down easily,” he said, confident the club’s rusted-on supporters would join the fight.

A stone’s throw from Doncaster and Nunawading is one of Australia’s most successful community footy clubs – Vermont.

Vermont president Danny Ross said the senior and junior arms of the powerhouse organisation were “acutely aware of where we’re at in terms of demographic” and meet regularly in an effort to future-proof the club.

“We need to be on top of our game in that space,” Ross said.

“We’ve had three strategy meetings with our junior club over the past three months.

“We’re shoring up our Auskick (and) we’re investing in the program.

“We’re going into the local primary schools … and we’re starting to do some work which we’ve never previously had to do.

“There’s 740 kids at Vermont Primary – 360 of them are boys and we might only get 12 or 13 out of the school now, that’s how much it’s changed. You can definitely see it’s changed and we have to change with it.”

Vermont is one of local footy’s most successful clubs, but not even they are immune from the changing demographic, club president Danny Ross says. Picture: AAP Image/James Ross

Vermont fields 22 junior teams with around 470 kids – but not even one of local footy’s most decorated clubs is immune from the rapidly-changing demographic and growing economic challenges of Melbourne’s east.

“I reckon three years ago we had 26 teams and 550 kids – so you can see over that period we’ve dropped down,” Ross said.

“We’ve just got to keep investing heavily in our juniors.”

One reader said at the time of Nunawading’s demise: “Cricket is the number one sport in Glen Waverley, Forest Hill, Nunawading, Vermont … which means all clubs are fielding less junior teams and in years to come even the mighty Vermont may be struggling.”

McCrindle finds it hard to disagree that interests lie elsewhere these days.

“We still do have good numbers of children in these areas, in fact if we look at Nunawading, you’ve got a slightly higher number of under-fives than the state and national average, so it’s not as though there aren’t young families, but they’re not following those traditional football pathways,” he said.

“We’re seeing that change across Victoria as a whole. If you look at migration, India and those from the subcontinent are now the largest-sourced countries into Victoria.

“If we look particularly at those areas … outside of being born in Australia, the number one country of birth of the father, even above Australia, is China, as it is for the mother. (For Nunawading), it’s China just ahead of India.

“You are getting those migration shifts that are impacting on who the new families are, and sports and interests.”

But one club bucking that trend is the Hume Bombers, based in Kalkallo in Melbourne’s northwest.

Born as an Auskick program in 2013, the club launched its juniors in 2017 – and this year fielded its inaugural senior team, which competes in Essendon District Football League’s thirds competition.

Japjot Kaur, Parwan Singh, Mehtab Singh, Jack Bacon, Gurabhay Singh Nagra, Emily Bacon and Solomon Semisi from the Hume Bombers football club. The club has been a raging success since it launched. Picture: Brendan Beckett

Hume Bombers president Avtar Singh said the club was made up “of people who’ve never played footy and people who haven’t played for a long time”.

Spearheaded by Indians, it’s a melting pot of ethnicities and the club is “never short of players”.

“That’s the beauty of it – and we have a mixture of pretty much everyone; we have Indians, we have Italians, you name it, pretty much every culture is playing in our senior team,” Singh said.

“It’s the most multicultural team you can find anywhere.

“Maybe next year we’ll put out another (senior) team – that’s how much interest we’re getting.”

The biggest growth potential in the grassroots game is expected in Melbourne’s western suburbs, highlighting Mount Cottrell as the “fastest-growing” suburb, with Tarneit, Werribee, Melton and Sunbury not far behind.

“The whole west of Melbourne – the outer-ring western suburbs – is growth central for the state,” McCrindle said.

“It’s where you’re getting a lot more of that cultural diversity and there’s great opportunities, because there’s growth, there’s population and there’s high birth rates and young families looking for the Australian opportunity for their children.

“There’s good opportunities there, but it’s going to take a different approach than just relying on the heritage pathways of the traditional sport and the connection with some of the clubs that go back generations.

“There has to be that innovative approach to connect with the new generations, particularly coming from migration.

The AFL Vic boss says attracting new participants to the game is a priority in 2025.

“We know even from those in elite level of football that a lot of them aren’t from multigenerational Australian-born (families), there’s been some great successes, particularly those coming from Africa and the Middle-East.”

AFL Victoria chief executive officer Greg Madigan recognises Melbourne’s changing demographic had significantly impacted community clubs.

Pointing to the AFL’s “Ways to Play” campaign as an “important focus for 2025”, the governing body would “look to address ways to increase participation and attract new participants who do not have an existing connection to our game”.

“Changing demographics and the economic situation are having a major influence on how clubs operate and as a code we are focusing on addressing this by supporting new ways to connect with the game, and to maintain and increase participation in a sustainable manner,” Madigan said, highlighting the AFL 9s format and Superkick (for kids aged 7-12 years) as a bridging program between Auskick and junior football.

“The ability of a community club to adapt and take a longer-term strategic view will best support their future.”

The outer southeast remains a vital key to the game’s wealth, where many young families are purchasing homes.

According to the 2021 Census, the average age in Clyde was just 30, while Cranbourne was 35.

“Clyde is in the top three fastest-growing areas in Victoria currently. Cranbourne’s just been growing strongly … with some good planning and those greenfield developments, (there are) opportunities for parks and for the clubs to really get connected at that grassroots level and build some tradition,” McCrindle said.

“If we think about the kids getting into AFL, that’s where it needs to start and if that base is wide enough, you’re going to get the flow through into the elite levels. But what are people looking for that move to these areas – the new parents want pretty much the same thing that people have always wanted, firstly that community connection, and secondly, they want their kids to have some activity to be healthy.”

North of the city towards Thomastown and Craigieburn, McCrindle said the ever-developing land could lend itself to a spike in kids picking up a Sherrin, shoring up the future of our game.

As of 2021, 33 per cent of Craigieburn’s population was aged under 18.

“Melbourne doesn’t have the same natural boundaries Sydney has – the restraints of the Blue Mountains and the harbour … Melbourne can continue that expansion,” McCrindle said.

“The land is very developable to the west and to the north, and young families aspire to a house, a detached house, not just unit living.

“That’s great for the future of footy because that lends itself to be able to kick a footy around and having a park nearby.

“It’s how the suburbs were developed – the inner suburbs – but now they’re (young families) further out. If the right provisions of parkland and suburban clubs can be put in place, that can continue.”

FOOTY’S UNLIKLIEST SUCCESS STORY

What started as kick-to-kick in an old Craigieburn paddock has turned into a community institution.

The Hume Bombers have become one of grassroots football’s unlikeliest success stories, thriving in Melbourne’s north among its Indian and multicultural demographic.

Now based at Kalkallo, president Avtar Singh has overseen the Bombers’ growth from an Auskick program to a junior club – to a senior team this season – in the space of 12 years.

“It started with a couple of boys kicking the footy at the ground, then it grew from two or three kids to a group of eight or nine. Then we thought, ‘Let’s go and seek interest’ and suddenly we had 30 or 40 people just wanting to play,” Singh said.

“It is growing and there’s a lot of interest in the area – it’s a very multicultural demographic.”

The club continues to challenge the belief that subcontinental kids don’t play footy.

For Singh, making the game attractive remains a balancing act. While many haven’t played before, the aim is simply to have fun.

“You’ve got to understand about these communities, where their parents came from, there’s no footy, so they don’t know anything about footy,” he said.

“If we put them straight into the competitive side of things, of course they’re not going to come back. That is the challenge; how we can make it attractive?”

Singh arrived in Australia as a student in 1997 and found his passion for footy not long after.

“I used to drive taxis and I used to pick up people from the MCG and listen to the game. I fell in love with it through people talking in the cabs,” he said.

His son, Divjot, played senior footy for Moonee Valley as a teenager last season and is a member of Essendon’s James Hird Academy and Next Generation Academy, having begun with the Hume Bombers’ Auskick.

Singh is confident the ceiling will shatter nationwide for subcontinental participation at grassroots level once a player is drafted to the AFL.

“Once we have that, the footy will explode,” he said. “It’s going to go crazy after that.”