THE community camp is a great initiative that gets us out into regional parts of Australia. We get to mix with the fans that may not have the opportunity to see football regularly, and also to connect with young players of the game.
At the Swans the players travelled to a lot of different parts of New South Wales. Jarrad McVeigh went back to the Central Coast, and Craig Bird went to back Newcastle, places where they both grew up. Tadhg Kennelly went to Wollongong, a town nowhere near where he grew up.
Nick Smith (aka Smooch) and I were paired up together to travel to the Riverina and we met at 7am to fly to Griffith. Nick isn’t what you may call a morning person, nor does he like small planes. Furthermore, Nick doesn’t normally drink coffee. Combine these two things, put a cup of coffee in Nick’s hand, and I’ve got myself one very intense plane ride sitting next to Nick.
We toured around with Jason McPherson, an ex-Swans player now regional manager of Southern NSW for the AFL. As we toured from school to school we were given the Underbelly tour of Griffith, and shown all the infamous landmarks.
We went through Matong and were told about the triple hyphenated Ganmain-Grong Grong-Matong football club, a culmination of three teams that once despised each other, coming together to form one (with a triple barrelled name it even puts Lewis Roberts-Thomson’s surname to shame).
The Riverina, in particular Wagga Wagga, is Kelly country (of the Paul variety, not the Ned variety). Loyal Swans fans greeted us at every school which was great to see and a real stand out of the trip.
The other stand out was the fact that every school we went to was a proud beneficiary of the Federal Government’s stimulus package with sensational school halls.
The community camp is over for this year, and our focus is back on preparing for the season. Thanks to everyone who Nick and I spoke to, we really enjoyed the trip. It was great to see things were so green in the Riverina, great to visit the Narrandera bakery once again, and even better that I’m not sitting next to Nick on that small plane anymore.
Ted Richards
@richards_report
