After being named the second-best Little Athletics centre in the state, Sunbury wants to go one better this season.
In a pleasant surprise to everyone at the club, the centre finished five points behind Geelong in the Little Athletics Victoria (LAV) centre-of-the-year ranking.
The criteria is how the club is run – not results by its athletes at events.
“One of our guys nearly jumped through the roof when it was announced,” club president David Thies said.
“We were hoping for the top 10, but once we’d heard who was in the top 13 we didn’t think we were in with a chance.
“There are 11 teams in our region and a couple of them were in the top 10 and they normally beat us. When they said a ‘Metro North region club’ had finished second we knew it was us as the other teams had been called.”
Thies said the previous highest the club had finished in his five years at the club was 27th.
“We are judged on a variety of things,” he said. “It’s about getting things on time to LAV and they visit the club to make sure everything is in order.
“It’s also about participation at events in the region and at state level. No one knows exactly what all the criteria are.”
In a good night for the club, it was revealed they had raised and donated the most money to the Royal Children’s Hospital.
“We didn’t expect that,” Thies said.
Finishing second in the state also earned the club $2500.
“It’s the first time they’ve given money for where you finish,” Thies said. “[We’ll use it] to build a new shed and run electricity to it.
“There’s not a lot of space in our current shed. The new shed will allow us to drive our golf buggy inside to reduce the amount of work carrying things.”
The new little athletics season starts this Saturday.
“We had 195 members last year and we’re hoping for 200 this year,” Thies said.
“We’ve gone to more high schools to get more kids in the older age groups. Kids seem to go away from little athletics as they get older.
“We have such a strong under-15 boys age group this year and we want to get kids in the other groups around them.
“We’re looking to get consistency through the age groups.”
