Narrabri Soccer dreams of Gately Field upgrades

Narrabri Soccer Club is keen to claim its title as the official home of Narrabri Soccer, now it just needs the facilities to match.

Saturday morning soccer comps see 320 junior teams take to Gately Field, with a strong community of 1000 plus parents and grandparents in tow, gathering to cheer on the next generation of football legends in the making.

While the Narrabri Soccer Club is proud of all its growing committee, junior participants and supporters have achieved over the years, its dreams of becoming a hub for regional soccer in the north west will take more investment.

The little clubhouse at the top of the field has stood for 30 years, with humble origins as the shed used by the council for parking mowers.

While the same shed has become the club’s home, members have worked on the one-room space to fit their needs, shifting it into a small canteen, storeroom for club gear, and a meeting room for committee members.

“The whole place needs an upgrade,” said Narrabri Soccer Club vice president Jamie Ryan.

“The clubhouse has seen a little bit of an upgrade over the years, but nothing that has been brought into this century.

“It would be nice to put a little kitchen in there and provide proper canteen access for our spectators.”

Fifty teams taking part in the soccer season and the club committee has only grown in present years.

“We’ve had ten volunteers on the committee for the past three or four years now which is great, previously the committee was only three to four running the whole show and they did a wonderful job,” said Mr Ryan.

“It’s a little bit easier now that the committee has grown and we’ve grown the number of kids participating, now we just want to be focused on making soccer better in the Northwest.

Currently, senior teams do not play on the home base grounds due to a lack of field lighting and poor ground conditions, hosting their major games and competitions across town at Oval 2.

Junior team practices are also cut short and limited or held at Oval 3.

“We would love to bring the seniors back home from Oval 2 so the junior teams can play on the same fields as their role models and see what they can move on to,” said Mr Ryan.

“Our grounds need proper levelling, and we need lights so our seniors actually want to play at our facilities, we should be the home base for Narrabri soccer,” said Mr Ryan.

Besides basic features that every good field deserves like top dressing, ground levelling, and lights, adding disabled access facilities is top of the agenda for the club.

“We don’t have disabled toilet access, you can’t fit a walker safely on the path, and there’s a pretty dangerous slope right in front of the canteen, where we have had a few tumbles,” said secretary Sam Lubke-Wood.

Updating the changing rooms for women is also a big priority for the club which has a 50/50 ratio of female to male players, as well as five women’s teams.

And with the FIFA Women’s World Cup currently touching down on Australian shores, the timing couldn’t be more appropriate to support the influx of female players signing up to play.

The club also has goals for becoming a regional access point for north west soccer and a location to host more representative games, in-town competitions, and carnivals.

“We are a central stop where kids can train too, right now, we’ve got kids going to Tamworth twice a week to train, and we can host the Walgett kids too,” said Mr Ryan.

“When visitors come from out of town, we want to be able to host them and show off our Narrabri pride for our fields and club.”

The next junior carnival in early August has 50 clubs registered to play, with teams and their families visiting from Moree, Inverell, Coonabarabran, and Gunnedah.

The day is also the club’s biggest earner, with 20 teams from out of town bringing over 1000 visitors.

With so many teams playing on the day, everyone pitches in, with up to 100 volunteers helping with getting ready and packing up on the day, and the senior boys’ teams coming to cook the barbecue.

The struggle to find referees for the 50 Narrabri club teams has also been met with the demand from younger players who are interested in undertaking the referees’ course.

Currently, the club facilitates an online course, with the closest in-person course offered in Gunnedah, but hopes it can change access for that kind of training too.

“We want to build those kids and their skills, and as we do, we can build that vision as they get older and want to get involved in helping to run games and coach the next generation.”