TRANSCRIPT: PRESS CONFERENCE AT RAWLINGS PARK, WAGGA WAGGA, 26 June 2020

E&OE

Subjects: Federal Government funding for Football Wagga Wagga to install lighting on Rawlings Park fields

MICHAEL McCORMACK

Well there is a famous saying ‘let there be light’ and Football Wagga Wagga has indeed allowed there to be light.

These magnificent light towers at Rawlings Park funded to the tune of $450,000 of Federal Government money which is going to provide such a difference for the 3,200 players – that’s men, women, girls and boys that Football Wagga Wagga has on their books.

This is going to provide such a difference for training, indeed for playing and whether it is first grade or whether it is the littlies, they are going to enjoy the benefits of this community sporting infrastructure that has been provided by the Federal Government.

I am delighted to be here today with Tim Barter who had so much to do with the planning and the strategy behind the proposal that enabled this funding to be allocated to Football Wagga Wagga.

It is a pretty special day today, too, given the fact that Australia and New Zealand have been awarded the 2023 Women’s FIFA World Cup and there is no reason why Wagga Wagga, with facilities such as what we have here at Rawlings Park, can’t be a coaching and training camp for that Women’s World Cup.

I have spoken with the Sports Minister Richard Colbeck about that very thing just this morning – about getting regional areas as part of the action for that very exciting announcement early this morning: Australia being one of the host nations for the Women’s World Cup and that is going to provide such a boost as well to women’s sport. Women will be inspired. Of course, we have had Sally Shipard from Wagga Wagga represent Australia. We have got a great history of sporting talent – men, women, boys and girls in Wagga Wagga, in the city of good sports and it is community infrastructure such as this that makes young people want to play. Because when you have got the best amenities available, when you have got the best facilities and you have got volunteer people willing to pitch in and do their bit to make these applications, to coach, to train, to develop young people – well it makes such a difference and it makes the future Michael Slaters and Geoff Lawsons and Mark Taylors and Sally Shipards and so many others take up that sport of their choice.

So well done Football Wagga Wagga – really pleased that these lights have been turned on, that is has come about as a result of the hard work of this great volunteer organisation which provides so much sport, so much benefit to so many people.

Now I will get Tim to add to those remarks and if you have got any other questions about this or any other issues of the day, I will be happy to answer them. Tim?

TIM BARTER

G’day, thank you very much, Michael, thanks for coming down to Wagga, your home.

Football Wagga would love to thank Michael and the Federal Government for providing the funding for this very worthwhile set of lights that we have here. It is absolutely brilliant – now we get to have three extra fields for training and playing at night.

It is a great facility, it just gives us somewhere to start – this is stage one of a complete development that we would love to have here to turn this into a whole complex for the future of sport. There is a lot of planning going on with our local Council, Wagga City Council, so we would like to thank them as well because everything we do is in conjunction with them.

It is a wonderful sport, soccer, it has had a lot of growth over the past few years and it is just going to keep growing and with the help of the Federal Government, State Government and our Council I think we can keep growing the facilities that we have here and keep making sure our kids have somewhere to play.

So, again, thank you very much.

JOURNALIST

Tim, just before you go, just in terms of that growth; what are we seeing in Wagga and is this sport growing here, especially among young kids and girls. With this announcement, that must help?

TIM BARTER

Absolutely, we have amazing growth over the last five years, especially due to the fact that we have brought in a full-time development officer in Kyle Yeates – Liam Dedini originally – he did a fantastic job and Kyle has come in to take over the role. But it makes a huge difference when we have guys like that going to the schools and bringing kids in to the sport. It is not too difficult to push them into it, they all love it as soon as they start kicking the ball around.

We have had great growth – I think we have doubled our numbers in five years from 1,500 to about 3,000. I do not see that as a massive growth rate but I think we will continue to grow – as the city grows we will grow and because of that we have to continually upgrade our facilities.

JOURNALIST

Obviously, with the World Cup announcement, are you expecting a lot of young girls to dream of playing in that and coming across to Football Wagga?

TIM BARTER

Absolutely, I hope so. We have put a lot of work in trying to grow our women and our girls teams within our competition. We would love to get to 50 per cent and it would be awesome if we did. At the moment we are looking around 30 per cent of all our playing numbers are women and girls.

We have always pushed to get equality within our sport and we will keep doing so. We just want all the kids to be playing, it doesn’t matter if they are girls or boys.

JOURNALIST

Tim, would Football Wagga be keen to be one of those regional bases for the Women’s World Cup when the time comes around?

TIM BARTER

We would love to! We would love to welcome them to our city. I think we have a fantastic city. We have got beautiful grounds here at the moment. We would love to get a few more facilities here to assist with that if we do get the chance. I am sure Wagga City Council could help us along those lines but, yeah, we would love to. We have got a great city, we have got a huge amount of people who would help if we did get some teams here to come and train for the Cup.

This is the hub of this whole region, so absolutely, why not come down here? It is not too far from Sydney.

JOURNALIST

Tim, you mentioned you would like Wagga City Council to help you out with a few facilities. What facilities specifically would you like to see here?

TIM BARTER

Stage two of our proposed development here – at the moment it is still a proposal, we are working on a master plan with council, they have been brilliant – we would love to have a second set of change rooms just over there, actually, as part of this development for fields two, three and four and our goal is to play the majority of women’s games at the front of where we are proposing to put those new change rooms so that they can be used by the women and girls – we would love to do that – and it would help the Lake Albert Cricket Club, the Bulls, as well because  they would be able to use the same facilities because at the minute we only have one set of change rooms for six fields which makes it very difficult. So we would love to get a second set of change rooms and toilets.

Thank you.

JOURNALIST

Michael, I just wanted to touch on that you mentioned briefly about trying to make Wagga a training base, potentially, can you give us any more information?

MICHAEL McCORMACK

Well the announcement for the World Cup allocation has only been made this morning and I was straight on the phone very early this morning to Richard Colbeck, the Sports Minister, to ask what could regional centres, such as Wagga Wagga and elsewhere, could play in that World Cup.

It is going to be an extravaganza of sport. It is going to be an extravaganza of culture and it is going to open up so many opportunities for not just women who are participating, but for the world who watch and for the world to look on and see what a great sporting nation Australia is. I mean, Australia’s reputation as a sporting nation is second to none already but this is going to shine a new light – pardon the pun given the fact we are announcing lighting structures and whatnot today – but it is going to open the world up for Australia.

Regional centres could play a big part in that. There is no reason why we couldn’t have one of those teams from overseas come here to Wagga Wagga and to set up base as a training camp. An, of course, they could, as Tim has just said, have school clinics and camps and those sorts of things so whilst they are here, whilst they are training for the World Cup. This could create so many opportunities for this city. It is already a multicultural city, it is already a cradle of multiculturalism – why shouldn’t Wagga Wagga , now that is has got these great facilities, why shouldn’t Wagga Wagga be able to participate in this way?

Of course, there will be plenty of bidders so I am sure there will be plenty of other regional capitals putting their hand up to participate and to take part in this Women’s World Cup in 2023. It is going to be so exciting and I can remember when the Sydney Olympics was on in 2000, the one event I went to was the Women’s Soccer and it was just fantastic.

We know that Wagga Wagga is a great city, we know that it is a great sporting city and we know that it is very capable of hosting a team coming down for a regional training camp.

Shane Manning