7 September 2012

Can you help the Tuggeranong Hawks?

| johnboy
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tuggeranong hawks

The Tuggeranong Hawks are letting it be known they want your help:

Local community based North East AFL club the Tuggeranong Hawks have been advised by the AFL that they need to show how they will improve their current financial position and competitiveness within the next six weeks to secure their place in the competition.

In response, the club has today launched the ‘Help the Hawks’ campaign, a call for the business community to support the club through a financial contribution and for local residents to buy a membership in order to meet the conditions set by the AFL.

“The AFL wants to see us fight for our club and show them that our local community care about our inclusion in the NEAFL competition. With over 500 players in junior divisions right through to the elite level, we think we have a club worth fighting for and desperately need local business and the community to get behind us and cement our place in the competition in 2013,” said Tuggeranong Hawks General Manager David Graham.

“South Canberra needs to continue to field an NEAFL team at the elite level. If the Hawks are asked to leave the NEAFL, we’ll lose an important talent pathway for our local Canberra players to make the National AFL competition,” David continued.

The Hawks are the only NEAFL club without the benefit of ongoing revenue from their own licensed club premises. This makes it a struggle to secure playing talent in a competition where they come up against the likes of the Sydney Swans and Greater Western Sydney. It also increases their reliance on support from the local business community and residents.

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pink little birdie11:22 am 18 Jul 13

Tuggeranong Hawks have been dropped from the NEAFL. It was reported in the Canberra times this morning.
Poor Hawks.

Primal said :

Something deep within my psyche refuses to let me support a team that looks anything like Hawthorn. Sorry 🙁

Correct – & they let Aka play for them. That’s 2 strikes IMO

Battlecat said :

When the ACT Government (admittedly a previous one) lets one club group monopolise the entire district with four strategically placed venues this is what happens. The Tuggeranong Hawks are the poorest in their league, the Tuggeranong Bushrangers are the poorest in their league, and Tuggeranong United are poorest in their league. But the Vikings have so much money their were flying their team to Brisbane every second week as well as paying for the opposition to come down here a couple of years ago! Don’t buy the ‘we support your community’ garbage.
Don’t even get me started on why there is only one Govt enclosed ground for the entire Tuggeranong district…spending some extra money on it doesn’t fit more matches on it.
And another thing, didn’t our local Govt spend 20-odd million dollars on a Western Sydney AFL team? While our own are going broke?

Appears like you have done some research there Battlecat…..

My understanding, and this was a few years ago now, was that Vikings didn’t support other codes of football as they saw them as competition for the same hearts and minds. A quick look at their website shows they have an affiliated American Football team, the Tuggeranong Tornadoes, so maybe they’ve changed their ways.

The Hawks will continue to struggle against the more established clubs without the licensed premises to support them.

pink little birdie7:21 pm 08 Sep 12

Vikings Lanyon used to support this club (ie club presentations after each week game, end of season presentation). Currently at the Southern cross club.

They don’t do as well in the seniors as you have swans and GWS reserve grades playing in the comp and then most other clubs use their funding for attracting the best regional talent.

I agree with making vikings and possibly Southern cross club Tuggeranong support the first grade teams in other sports as these are the only teams for the entirety of Tuggeranong in these sports. Eastlake football club gets the calwell club pokies as well as their own .

The Melbourne argument is invalid… Different competition and less development opportunities to Canberra and Melbourne doesn’t have the competition between the 3 major leagues at this level.

The Canberra argument is the Hawks aren’t receiving funding from a pokie club where as all other clubs are and this puts the club at a huge disadvantage in attracting coaching and playing talent.

Sorry. I don’t care about this club. I come from Victoria where football is all about having a beer in the rooms after training and a group of guys who don’t consider themselves professionals playing a game. The elite clubs are elite and don’t have trouble attracting money because they’re in the VFL and have direct ties to an AFL club. If you can’t get money, the club probably is not all that elite.

When the ACT Government (admittedly a previous one) lets one club group monopolise the entire district with four strategically placed venues this is what happens. The Tuggeranong Hawks are the poorest in their league, the Tuggeranong Bushrangers are the poorest in their league, and Tuggeranong United are poorest in their league. But the Vikings have so much money their were flying their team to Brisbane every second week as well as paying for the opposition to come down here a couple of years ago! Don’t buy the ‘we support your community’ garbage.
Don’t even get me started on why there is only one Govt enclosed ground for the entire Tuggeranong district…spending some extra money on it doesn’t fit more matches on it.
And another thing, didn’t our local Govt spend 20-odd million dollars on a Western Sydney AFL team? While our own are going broke?

I’ll help them out even though I’m from the other end of town. I enjoy heading down to Tuggers for the occasional NEAFL game on Saturday afternoons. Good atmosphere and cheap day out.

It’s a shame all sports clubs rely on pokie machines.

Something deep within my psyche refuses to let me support a team that looks anything like Hawthorn. Sorry 🙁

Growling Ferret6:37 pm 07 Sep 12

SnapperJack – Tuggeranong Bulldogs still exists as a Junior Club.

Tuggeranong Hawks has a NEAFL, Div 1, 2 and womens team, and are sponsored by the Southern Cross Club at Tuggeranong. Vikings would not be seen sponsoring a rival code…

However, the CSCC sponsorship is small beer when you hear Ainslie FC have a footy ops budget of over $500k per annum (although someone will probably correct me and tell me its significantly more than that). Sausage sizzles and lamington drives don’t raise half a mill!

I’m surprised that one of the clubs like the Southern Cross club or Vikings havent stepped up to provide licenced club sponsorship for them. They’re always the ones going on about how they support local sporting teams and this is one from their heartland (I’m sure they could get some sort of tax benefit for it). It would be a shame to see them go as the club has a large youth club base in the Bulldogs and Lions (if they haven’t merged already?).

I’m confused. Is there still a team called the Tuggeranong Bulldogs or is the Hawks the old Bulldogs with a new name? The Tuggeranong Bulldogs began life in the 1970s with the strange name of Sutherland Football Club.

What happend to “sport”?

I blame poker machines. If you don’t have them at your club, it appears you can’t compete against those that do.

Level the playing field, and solve a lot of other issues at the same time, get rid of ’em!

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