Tucked away in what a lot of people call “the sticks” is a football club.
Just your average, run of the mill “country” footy club. I say average because like so many clubs, this one deals with the same pressures as any other. Recruitment, retention, cost of balls, umpires’ fees, liquor licencing requirements, insurance are just a few things that keep club administrators busy 12 months of the year.
But one of the biggest challenges which makes this club as average as so many others is facilities.
So many clubs, right across the country and undoubtedly the world, battle with aging club houses, goal posts that have been around since one got flogged at West Park and showers that need a good old-fashioned redo because of their good old-fashioned nature.
I remember playing “up the hill” as a young bloke and lighting the fire in the visitors sheds to heat he water so when we got in after the match we could have a warm shower. It snowed and the nice guys playing seniors let the fire go out. I digress but we didn’t light the fire for them as penance.
This club is Motton Preston Football Club in the North Western Football Association on the North West Coast of Tasmania. The club knows about its facilities and rarely complain, with one senior administrator saying it embraces what it has. And this is the point of this blog.
Despite being more Meager Cricket Ground than MCG, the Demons have created a high performance, winning culture, taking out the 2020 NWFA premiership. Now before you start jumping up and down about it only being a four team competition last year and only six round plus finals, I have a heap of phone numbers of players, club officials and Association officials who worked their fundament to get footy to happen in the Covid year and in some way, with all the challenges that brought, this flag was as tough to win as any other. If you’d like to give them a call, hit me up. That and you should have seen the elation of the players at the final siren. That flag meant normality and a culmination of a massive preseason that happened before any lockdowns.
Motton Preston have developed a culture around “right fit” and this is what has brought the success. The Demons are a family club with kids of players wearing the club colours, even on Christmas Day, long after the small of sweat a deep heat has been cleared from the tin sheds. Its culture saw a massive turnout to the Grand Final where tickets were exhausted within hours of going on sale and people using social media to try and, well almost, scalp tickets. This culture is one of the premiership coach talking about his kids in a post-game interview (https://fb.watch/3wAnG6OFFs/) as much as he spoke about the feats of his team. The club plays for each other. There is no room for people who will not buy into the high-performance community football mentality. This has seen several Grand Final appearances over recent years and a club that is able to maintain playing group knowing that its culture is on the right track.
At TASSACC1 on February 27 at the Devonport Country Club, multiple premiership football coach Dale Perry who has coached at several levels with varying facilities will talk about how to build a high-performance environment without high-performance facilities. Something Motton Preston has done over recent years.
To book your tickets to hear Dale Perry and Brian Lyons at #TASSACC1 go to eventbrite
