The Seagulls have earned the affection of their own community and have provided a ‘home’ for generations of locals. The healthy state of the juniors program will hopefully provide for many other generations to come.
Sometimes your first impressions of a clubroom can tell you the most important things about a club. The rooms of the Altona Hockey Club (The Seagulls) are an instant reflection of its people and its culture.
There are honour boards, two premiership brick displays signed by all players, couches, a bar with personalised stubby holders stacked in a row waiting for their owners, a uniform shop, a canteen, a pool table, a first aid room and over 100 premiership flags hoisted high on the rafters.
The junior board is a colourful display of participation certificates with photos, premiership flags and the words FUN, SUCCESS and FRIENDS in bright letters. The rooms give off a strong warm feeling of celebration and of fun. It is no wonder the Altona Hockey Club has 300 members with over 180 of them being juniors.
Now nearly 75 years old, the club offers full family participation with teams for all age groups from Minkey (five year olds plus) to the veterans with current players in their fifties. The club is well represented in all ages with 14 junior teams, 9 senior teams and 3 veterans teams. It has spawned many players who have been selected in junior, senior and veteran, state and national teams including Commonwealth Gold Medallist, Luke Doerner and Sydney Olympic Bronze Medallist, Jason Duff.
Rob Burns, club secretary for the last five years has had family links to the club for most of his life but only began playing hockey at 36 years of age.
“Hockey is great exercise and the team and social aspect is really enjoyable. Not many of us in the vets take it that seriously so it is a lot of fun. We have a really good social and family atmosphere here, we have policies in place to make sure the club is attractive to juniors and families,” Rob says.
The club’s successful junior program is the result of hard work and clever recruiting strategies that have paid off. The School Hockey Development Program is voluntarily run by current player Karen Symons and past player Merryn Brennan. Letters are sent to local schools from Williamstown to Point Cook offering hockey clinics for 5 – 6 weeks. A small fee is charged for longer periods. A recent program saw 200 children from Point Cook participate which Karen hopes will spark further interest in the sport.
“The clinics are a great way to promote hockey as a sport and hopefully recruit some new juniors especially in the under 9 and 11s. In 2004 more than 20 children who participated in the clinics became members of the club. We had a great program at Point Cook recently and in the New Year we will contact these kids again and try and get them to come to a Come and Try Day,” says Karen.
Though bursting with activity today, three or four years ago the club almost folded due to the state of the ground which had become too dangerous to play on. The club had to find $300,000 to replace the existing ground with a new synthetic pitch. Ian Bartlett, club ‘legend’ and holder of the highest number of games played (330 plus senior games) became a key player in more ways than one.
“We were in a pretty bad way as a club as we still owed money on the original ground and we had to find the extra money to replace it. Adam Barty (chairman) and Brian Fanning (board member) went to council and really pushed our case with them. They did all the ground work with the local community too, it was a huge effort and they drove it all,” Ian says.
What resulted was an arrangement between Hobson’s Bay City Council and the Altona Hockey Club to provide half of the funds each. Finding such a huge amount of money would be impossible for most clubs. The real story behind the scenes is even more remarkable. Ian Bartlett lent the club over half of the amount needed to purchase the pitch.
“Putting the money up was the easy part. I had absolutely no doubt the money would come back to me. It was an easy decision to make. The club had been saving for about 6 years to try and get this ground. I didn’t see the loan as a risk at all. I love this club and I love playing hockey. I get the benefit of being able to still play here and use the new ground,” explains Ian.
The new pitch was laid between seasons. In a classic display of community spirit, 40 or 50 people turned up on Boxing Day in 2004 and with the help of a forklift, ripped up the bulk of the old ground in a day.
“I am really proud of the work people at the club have done to get the new ground.” Rob says. “It was a major project and a lot of work was done by other board members to make this happen. I think it is the only ground of its type in Victoria.”
The future holds continuing financial pressures for the club however, with a new ground needed again in fifteen years. A financial plan is in place to contribute to those costs already.
Rob believes that the major challenge now is to maintain participation and memberships. A lot of work goes into designing a fee structure that suits all. The committee takes into account families that have a number of members and ex–players who like to come and watch and still be part of the club (social members).
“The viability of the clubs depends on the people. We always need team managers, coaches, umpires, people to look after the canteen and the bar. We have a roster for the bar and canteen and a policy that says the canteen will be closed if the rostered person doesn’t turn up! This hasn’t happened yet! But it is needed because without a canteen and a bar, there would be less interest in the club,” Rob continues.
The interest in the Altona Hockey Club hit a high in the mid 90s when the club earned a reputation for ‘pretty boisterous’ home crowds.
“During the premiership years of ’94 and ’96 we attracted pretty large crowds. The home crowd was dubbed the ‘Snakepit’ by the opposition,” Ian explains.
The club proudly utilises this reputation and offers social memberships to the Snakepit Brigade which offers various incentives and rewards.
Hockey is a popular sport in Victoria with approximately 35,000 people participating at a club or school level or recreationally. Success on the world stage for our Hockeyroos and Kookaburras has also engendered a real affection for the sport for many Australians.
In Altona, the Seagulls have earned this affection in their own community and have provided a ‘home’ for generations of locals. The healthy state of the juniors program will hopefully provide for many other generations to come.
“My father played for the club. My sister plays. I have made all of my friends from being involved in the club. There are a lot of people here who donate a lot of time to the club. Without them, we wouldn’t be here,” Ian says.
And without Ian, neither would some of them.
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Hockey Club Sticks to the Ground Work – Altona Hockey Club
More information
The Altona Hockey Club can be contacted at www.altonahc.org.au