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Our good old Adelaide City Council at work. What a dumb lot of twits. Good article by David Penberthy showing how out of touch they are.


Adelaide Council doesn’t seem to know what the Crows really do here | David Penberthy

SA’s most popular community-based organisation might as well be the Medellin Cartel or Union Carbide for the hostility they encounter, writes David Penberthy.




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TREATMENT OF CROWS IS SO PETTY AND SO TYPICAL Imagine the city of Chicago declaring the Bulls were an irritant and that basketball was a moronic pursuit. Imagine the city of Manchester deciding Manchester United was soaking up too much attention from other things that mattered more and that Old Trafford was an eyesore. Other cities recognise that their major sporting teams are not only loved by their community but help define the city itself. In South Australia, the state’s most popular community-based organisation, the Adelaide Football Club, is regarded by some of those who wield inordinate power as a rogue entity. The Crows might as well be the Medellin Cartel or Union Carbide for the hostility they encounter as they try to go about their business. Be it upgrading the Adelaide Oval, redeveloping the Adelaide Aquatic Centre, building a new club headquarters or doing something as positive as staging a football tournament for 350 youngsters to promote the cause of reconciliation, the myth persists that our most popular footy club is some rapacious corporate outfit that must be challenged – or even thwarted – at every turn. All this for the biggest and most loved organisation in the state. The Crows had about 63,000 members last year and are on track this year to crack 65,000. In contrast, former trade union boss Janet Giles was elected to the Adelaide City Council last year. Just 1685 people voted for her. Ms Giles is a part of the Green-Left faction on the council which last week caused a backlash by cancelling a modest $23,490 grant to the Crows’ grassroots charity arm for the staging of the Kumangka Cup ahead of the Sir Doug Nicholls Indigenous Round. The event has been planned as a day-long football carnival for students in years 7 and 8 from six city schools where they would be led through a raft of activities by 50 young Aboriginal people from the Tjindu Foundation. Every business staging the event is Indigenous-owned and operated. The entire purpose of the event is to promote reconciliation. The logistical horror of dealing with the council was demonstrated by the fact that smart and dedicated staff in its administration had spent weeks working with the Adelaide Crows Foundation to make sure it all went ahead. It hadn’t occurred to any of these diligent people on the council that anyone would have a problem with it. The expectation was that the money would be forthcoming in the same way grants were extended by the council to many other community organisations. Then along came Giles and her comrades and put it to the sword, her faction confusing the Crows’ charity arm with the football club itself, which they wrongly believe is a corporation, when like every other club in the AFL it is a not-for-profit entity. The decision to axe funding for a children’s event promoting reconciliation all happened the same night the council signed off on a formal position supporting a “Yes” vote at the referendum. It was absurd. This week, absurdity turned to pig-headedness. When Councillor Arman Abrahimzadeh moved, with the support of Lord Mayor Jane Lomax-Smith, to reverse this decision – a commendable move that reflected community sentiment and helped the council avoid yet another public relations hit – five councillors, led by Giles, voted against it a second time. It’s bizarre that almost half the members of the city’s peak governing body appear to despise the city’s peak sporting organisation. They have no grasp of what football means to people. They disparage the club like it’s a major bank or big pharma or something. It is a footy club. It exists so that people can have fun. So that kids can get dressed up in their Crows gear to go to Auskick. It exists for families with group memberships having their regular seats in the outer every second week. It makes kids passionate about sport and keeps them away from their electronic devices. It promotes Aboriginal heritage. Yet it is seen through warped eyes as some elitist corporate enterprise. Both by way of a disclosure, and also because it informs my knowledge of the issue, I freely and happily reveal that my wife is on the board of the Adelaide Crows Foundation. It is an unpaid position that she does with glee, being a bit of a leftie who believes sport has a role to play in addressing gender equality, reconciliation and giving opportunities and structure to kids who would otherwise have none. You think about the support of Port Adelaide Enfield Council for the terrific new Port Adelaide headquarters at Alberton, or Blacktown Council doing everything it can in western Sydney to aid the creation of GWS, or the manner in which councils across Melbourne moved heaven and earth to provide top-shelf suburban facilities for their many AFL teams. In Adelaide, almost half the members of Adelaide City Council have a crisis meeting whenever the word “Crows” is heard. The punchline is that they’re currently working out how to charge businesses and motorists more for outdoor dining and parking on account of their budget being at the brink of collapse. This from the same entity that had its very own report revealing that the clapped-out aquatic centre was costing $700,000 a year to maintain and would cost $14m to $21m to upgrade, and yet still rejected a Crows proposal for a brand new swim complex that was smaller, better, had guaranteed public access, and wouldn’t have cost them a cent. I guess some principles are more important than common sense – or the overwhelming public support for a beloved sporting organisation.


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