World Footy News

The Hull Mariners are one of England's newest Aussie rules clubs, and in addition to kicking off senior football in the town, the club is getting straight into junior development.

As part of the growth of Hull Mariners Australian Rules FC, Development officers Dan Beardshaw and Carl Hagar have being working hard to lay down firm roots within the local schools throughout the city of Hull.

“After initially contacting P.E. staff throughout the city, we were happy that we had the interest to put together our own school system, one that would suit anybody who wants to take the field," says Hagar.

“Whilst many players are happy to just play for their school, some may want to try and test themselves and play at a higher level and we want to give them the opportunity to not only represent their school, but the local community as well."

Beardshaw adds “A large amount of these schools are in ‘difficult’ areas, so part of what we are doing will hopefully have an impact of on all round health and crime reduction. A lot of these pupils need a focus, especially during the summer holidays, once rugby league and football seasons finish (both winter sports across here) as many have nothing that interests them. After getting feedback from pupils, a large amount of youngsters spend most of the day either sat in front of a computer or out causing problems in the local community as a ‘way of entertaining themselves’."

Carl follows up with “We want to combat that with one of the most exciting and rapidly growing sports in the world.”

As a first step, the club are focusing on key stage 4 (ages under 15 and 16), looking to start off with a tournament of around 100 pupils, which will be enough to smooth out any problems before expanding the project to other age groups.

The long term aim will be running their own set of leagues at each age group, which would then grow an open age league throughout Hull and its surrounding area.

Because Hull is predominantly a rugby league stronghold, we feel we can market the sport to youngsters and parents through the transferable skills on offer; a break from other sports, but increasing fitness and skills in a fun and safe environment.

We have set ourselves a target of, that in 2 years, we will have 50 youngsters playing the sport outside of school – which would give us around about 4 teams (playing 9 a side) and our “own” league. We will then look to at least double that every 2 years.

The only thing holding the club back at the moment is a lack of volunteers. The sudden increase in awareness of the sport and the Mariners within the area has shot up massively throughout the last 6 months, so hopefully we will be able to recruit potential coaches/managers and backroom staff on the back of that.

For any other information on the Mariners, or to get involved at any level, feel free to contact: HullAussieRules@hotmail.co.uk or check out the Hull Mariners Facebook group.