THE siren has sounded to mark the beginning of the 2024 winter sport season, with action returning to fields, pitches, courts and everything in between over the past couple of weeks.
The return of the Adelaide Plains competition this coming weekend will make for a full complement of coverage in next week’s Bunyip, with this edition already packed to the brim with sporting content.
It is near-on impossible to quantify the worth of local sport to rural communities, but look no further than your neighbourhood ground on a Saturday to get a pretty good idea.
Sport can at times be the heartbeat of a town and the mental health benefits of belonging to a club rival the physical benefits of playing the code itself.
You don’t have to be a strapping centre half forward or a lights-out goalshooter to get involved in the local sporting community.
Cheering on the team is a fantastic way to spend a weekend, but local clubs don’t run themselves.
Volunteers are the lifeblood of the local sporting fraternity and in this day and age, they are proving harder to come by year-on-year.
If you have some spare time on a weekend this winter, duck down to the club and see if they need a hand behind the canteen or on the committee.
A few hours out of your week could help to ensure that hundreds of people continue to reap the benefits of weekly sporting competition.
All too often we see clubs fall by the wayside, particularly in regional communities, due to too much responsibility falling on the few rather than the many.
Many hands make light work.
