Another chapter has been added in the bid to get football back to Quorn with former Wilmington-Melrose footballer and B grade coach Russ Keneally weighing into the debate.
Keneally who coached the now defunct Spencer Gulf Football League club Quorn-Wilsden Wolves in 1999/2000 said last week he is at odds with the current push to have South Augusta play a couple of home and away games in the town.
Keneally is very passionate about the topic and says the SGFL should play no part in any future plans.
He said Quorn should be looking towards entering the Northern Areas Football Association either as a stand alone outfit or as an amalgamated club.
“I believe that Quorn should have football,” Keneally said.
“But after what happened to my football club – the Quorn-Wilsden club – the SGFL would have to do some serious back-tracking for us to be involved in that.
“Orroroo I believe have either officially or unofficially approached Quorn and we would support that so that there would be football at Quorn, but it would still take a lot of negotiating from all the parties involved.
“We are financially well-off and we could help with all the start-up costs like guernseys and whatever stuff they needed to have.
“But we are not the slightest bit interested with anything to do with amalgamating with the SGFL.”
With netball a key component in Northern Areas, any talks of merging Quorn with either Booleroo-Melrose-Wilmington or Orroroo - or any other plans Quorn might like to explore such as going it alone as a seventh club in the NAFA - must include netball participation.
Quorn has fielded teams in the Port Augusta netball competition for the last two years and Keneally coached the A grade in its first year.
“Netball is fairly strong in Quorn and the As made the four this year,” he said.
“But they have committed to a long term netball thing in Port Augusta and whether or not they pull the pin on that as soon as something else comes up you’d have to wait and see.
“But again, its easy to say ‘yeah I’m going to amalgamate with Orroroo’ when you’re going to have to travel as far as Port Broughton or Crystal Brook to play so there’s an expense attached to that.
“But my understanding in dealing with Quorn netball last year is they are committed to Port Augusta because it is cheaper.
“So I don’t think Quorn can guarantee their netballers are suddenly going to turn around and accept going to Broughton-Mundoora or these places when they know that they play in Port Augusta every Saturday afternoon.”
Keneally said any plan to bring football back to Quorn will need to be carefully thought-out and negotiated so it benefits everyone involved, particularly the junior footballers coming up through the colts.
“If there’s six teams in the SGFL and six in the Northern Areas like there is then they want to have five home games at Quorn not one or two token games,” he said.
“So I keep coming back to the fact that if they want to amalgamate with a NAFA team then we would be prepared to put some money in to help set them up.
“But if it involves an SGFL team then we would probably fight it whether it’s just a publicity campaign or whatever.”
Meanwhile a spokesman for Orroroo Football Club said he had no knowledge of any official talks taking place between the Roos and the Quorn connections and declined our offer to be interviewed on the record at this stage.
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