Northern Fury are spreading their wings outside of Townsville to reinforce the club’s ethos of offering a pathway to elite football for rising talents across the North Queensland region, says Chairman Rabieh Krayem.

Fury recently travelled to Ayr, located 88km south of Fury’s Townsville base, for a series of coaching clinics and pre-season fixtures for the Under 20’s and the NPL senior men’s team.

While the matches provided invaluable match time ahead of the NPL Queensland season proper, Krayem said the motivation was much broader than that.

“For us, it’s not just about Townsville it’s about the region itself,” Krayem said.

“Having an NPL side, which will hopefully lead to greater things, it’s about engaging with the broader football community in the region and building that.”

“As much as we want people to come to Townsville to watch, it’s just as important for us to take our game to those areas as well.”

“It’s important for the game to flourish in these regional areas. For us it’s about spreading the word and taking the game to the people.”

Smaller population centres in North Queensland have long punched above their weight in producing talented footballers, with Ayr laying claim to former Fury A-League goalkeeper Matthew Ham and current Central Coast Mariner Zachary Anderson.

Krayem explained that many players already travel vast distances to be involved in Fury’s coaching and development programme and the club was eager to reciprocate at the community level.

“I’m sure a number of clubs in Brisbane don’t understand the challenges that the regional clubs in the NPL competition face.”

“We’ve got players from Under 12’s right through to the NPL senior men that travel a return journey of 250km to come to training three times a week or to come to a game,” he said.

He explained that NPL Queensland clubs are working to offset the tyranny of distance.

“There’s a lot of smaller towns up and down the coast that play the game but don’t get the opportunity at the highest level.”

“I think what the NPL has done by including ourselves, Cairns and Rockhampton, it gives opportunities for those younger players in those areas to aspire to it without having to leave home.”

“We’ve got to show there’s a pathway for those kids,” he stressed.

Krayem outlined that Fury Director of Coaching Ian Ferguson, who played the game at the highest level with Rangers in Scotland before enjoying a successful coaching career in the A-League, will be on the ground in towns such as Ayr, Ingham, Bowen and Charters Towers throughout the year to assist with coaching development.

“They don’t have quality coaches in those areas, so it’s important for us that the players have coaches that can coach in the right way.

“So we’ll spend quite a bit of time with those coaches and the local football communities in how we get better qualified coaches to ultimately benefit the players.”

Krayem also outlined the club’s vision to engage with North Queensland’s indigenous communities as well, saying it was an area where football needed to follow the lead of rugby league and aussie rules.

“It’s part of our five year strategy to grow our centre of excellence for our existing players but also have a very specific working area for indigenous players.”

“We’re engaging with all levels of government about it and engaging with FootbalL Queensland as well.”

“Football in the indigenous areas has a great opportunity to contribute to the community.”

 

Words: Michael Flynn (Football Queensland)
Image: Northern Fury FC