Manningham United Blues FC boosted by $300,000 grant for LED lighting upgrades

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Manningham United Blues FC have received a $300,000 funding grant which will be used for lighting upgrades at the club’s home at Timber Ridge Reserve.

The funding has been provided through a partnership between the local Manningham Council and the Victorian Government, through their World Game Facilities Fund.

The upgrades will see a new 50 LUX LED floodlight system installed at the ground in the coming months, consisting of 4 new LED lighting towers which will light up two full size pitches and a small side pitch at the reserve.

President of Manningham United Blues FC, Mark Giuliani, believes the new upgrades will have a positive impact on the local community.

“Looking at the wider community, the new system will have a significant effect in reducing the lighting-up of neighbouring backyards,” he told Soccerscene.

“Obviously, the lighting system we have now is pretty old and it just sprays light everywhere, whereas LED lighting is very accurate and precise.

“So, in terms of the local residents, that will be the number one benefit for them as they won’t have their backyards impacted.”

The club will also benefit significantly from the improved lighting system in the years to come.

“In terms of us, there’s numerous things I think we are going to benefit from,” Giuliani said.

“One main benefit is definitely the financial aspect, the system we have now is pretty old and each year we spend at least $1000 on globe replacements.

“The running costs will also be better off now that the lights are LED and this will be an important financial gain for us.

“On top of that, we will definitely get a much more even spread and better lighting on that facility now, rather than what we’ve got in the past.”

Giuliani explained that under the new lights, night games will soon be allowed to be hosted at the club’s home ground, which hasn’t been permitted in the past.

This, however, will only apply up to a certain competition grade and will depend on the LUX it will provide.

“We were offered the option to chip in some extra funding to bring it up to a certain LUX for NPL games, but at the moment the club is not in a financial position to make that extra investment,” he said.

“It is however NPL ready, so all the wirings and powering, the lighting towers, the fixtures up in the towers, they will all be ready if we want to upgrade to host NPL games.”

The senior male team currently competes in NPL2 after securing promotion to the NPL system in recent years.

Manningham itself, has a strong, yet relatively recent history. After humble beginnings in 1999 with only a few junior teams initially, the club merged with Fawkner Blues SC in recent years and now has 39 teams and around 2000 members.

The club has now become the biggest community club in Manningham through factors such as their female program, which continues to expand across the board.

Facilities have been key to their growth and alongside the announcement of the new lighting setup, the club has received recent clubroom upgrades at Timber Ridge Reserve, through funding from the local council.

“We have also just had a recent upgrade to our Timber Ridge Reserve, in terms of our clubrooms – it was a $300,000 upgrade which was funded through Manningham Council, which we are extremely thankful for,” Giuliani said.

Since 2018, the World Game Facilities Fund has invested $13.2 million in 48 game-changing infrastructure projects with a total value of more than $41 million. The next round of the World Game Facilities Fund will open for applications in August 2021.

For more information visit: sport.vic.gov.au/grants-and-funding/our-grants/world-game-facilities-fund

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Football NSW Expands Flexible Football Program as Women’s Participation Surges

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Football NSW has expanded its Flexible Football Initiatives program into six additional associations in 2026, building on a successful pilot year that demonstrated measurable demand for shorter, more accessible formats among women and girls across the state.

The program, a key pillar of the NSW Football Legacy Program funded by the NSW Office of Sport, offers casual tournaments and abbreviated competitions designed to fit around the schedules of women who may not be able to commit to the structure of a traditional 90-minute outdoor winter season. The participation data supports the premise: women currently make up 33 percent of summer football participants compared to 26 percent in outdoor winter football, representing a gap that points directly to the role format flexibility plays in driving female engagement with the game.

First piloted in 2025 in partnership with Football Canterbury, Northern Suburbs Football Association, Macarthur Football Association and Hills Football, the program has now expanded to ten associations across NSW following strong results in its inaugural year.

“Flexible Football gives women more ways to get involved, whether through shorter games or casual competitions,” said Football NSW Female Football Coordinator Emma Griffin. “It’s about making football easier to access and helping more women enjoy playing.”

The structural logic is straightforward. Barriers to participation in women’s sport are rarely about interest, but rather are about time, cost, geography and the degree to which formal competition structures accommodate the realities of women’s lives. A program that removes the requirement to commit to a full winter season lowers the threshold at the point where many women disengage.

The initiative sits within a broader national picture of sustained growth in women’s football, with participation numbers at record levels following the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup and the 2026 AFC Women’s Asian Cup currently underway in Australia.

Northern NSW Football Calls in SAPA as Participation Surge Sparks Big Plans

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Northern NSW Football has commissioned Sports Advisory Partners Australia to lead the development of its 2027 to 2029 Strategic Plan, a process that will shape the direction of one of Australia’s most significant regional football markets at a moment when the game nationally is navigating unprecedented growth and structural complexity.

The engagement, announced this week, will see SAPA conduct extensive consultation across NNSWF’s registered participants, member zones, standing committees, board of directors and executive leadership before delivering a final plan scheduled for release in September. The firm brings to the project a track record that spans Football Australia, the A-Leagues, AFL, Rugby Australia, Golf Australia and the Oceania Football Confederation.

NNSWF CEO Peter Haynes said the organisation intended to be deliberate and ambitious about what the next plan would ask of the sport in the region.

“This plan will do more than that,” Haynes said. “It will play a critical role in shaping the future of football in our region. We are going to be bold, ambitious and take this opportunity to really push our sport forward to reach its potential.”

 

Building on a period of significant growth

NNSWF’s current 2024 to 2026 Strategic Plan has already delivered measurable outcomes across participation, competition strength and community engagement, and has done so against a national backdrop that has made the job of growing football both easier and more demanding simultaneously.

The 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup and the recent AFC Women’s Asian Cup in Australia have driven participation surges that are being felt at the regional level as acutely as anywhere. Northern NSW, which covers a vast and diverse geographic footprint from the Hunter Valley to the Queensland border, has seen women’s and girls’ football registrations climb sharply, reflecting a trend Haynes flagged publicly during Football Australia’s recent push for a $343 million NSW grassroots infrastructure fund, in which he noted that participation across the region was at record levels and still rising.

That growth creates a specific strategic challenge. Momentum is relatively easy to generate in the wake of a major tournament. Sustaining it across a three-year planning horizon, through the inevitable post-event cooling of public attention, against ongoing pressure on club volunteers and community facilities, and in competition with other codes for government funding and ground access, requires a more deliberately constructed framework than goodwill alone can provide.

The 2027 to 2029 plan will need to answer questions that the current plan did not have to confront at the same scale: how to absorb participation growth without degrading the quality of the experience for existing players, how to build the referee and coaching pipelines that expanding competitions demand, and how to make the case for infrastructure investment in regional communities where football’s political leverage is real but not unlimited.

 

The Regional Dimension

Regional football in Australia occupies a structurally distinct position within the national game. It sits outside the metropolitan NPL systems that tend to attract most of the administrative attention and commercial investment, and serves communities where football is often the largest club-based sport and where the absence of adequate pathways has historically meant talented players relocating or disengaging entirely.

NNSWF’s decision to invest in a professionally developed strategic plan, rather than producing one internally, signals an awareness that the next phase of growth requires external rigour and benchmarking against what is working elsewhere. SAPA’s familiarity with the organisation, cited by Haynes as a factor in the appointment, also suggests a desire for continuity of thinking rather than a wholesale strategic reset.

SAPA Executive Director Sam Chadwick said the firm was focused on producing something actionable rather than aspirational.

“Our goal is to deliver a clear and actionable strategy that will guide continued growth and long-term success for the game,” Chadwick said. “Northern NSW Football has built a strong platform through its 2024 to 2026 Strategic Plan and we are delighted to support the next phase of its journey.”

Community at its Centre

NNSWF Chairman Mike Parsons emphasised that the process would be driven by community voice rather than imposed from above, a commitment that carries practical as well as symbolic weight in a region where the diversity of football communities, from coastal clubs to inland associations, means that a single strategic framework must accommodate significantly different local realities.

“This will be a strategy for the entire football community and it is vital that we hear from as many voices as possible,” Parsons said. “Through genuine consultation and collaboration we will ensure the next strategic plan reflects the needs and aspirations of our community while positioning our game for continued success.”

Consultation opportunities will roll out across the coming months. The 2027 to 2029 Strategic Plan is scheduled for release in September.

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