Tag: brawl

An outback town in northern WA faces a huge test this football season — to stop crowd fighting and feuding from overshadowing its reputation as an AFL talent factory.

Halls Creek is the hub of the East Kimberley Football League’s southern division, where teams from largely Indigenous communities play a fast, instinctive and highly-skilled style, grounding an over abundance of top league players.

The AFL has identified Halls Creek’s potential and, along with the state government, has invested in the region to smooth the pathway from the remote town to the highest level.

Most people in Halls Creek are Indigenous and football in the dry season is a huge part of the town’s identity, instilling pride in players and their families.

But leaders lament the sporting spectacle has an unwanted dark side.

They say for too long it’s been a magnet for drunken spectators looking to settle old scores in long-running family feuds.

Community advocates say intergenerational trauma and entrenched social problems such as alcohol abuse and welfare dependency help fuel bad behaviour, especially when bragging rights are on the table.

Brawl mars grand final

Last year, when the Yardgee Dockers soundly defeated the Kururrungku Roos in the grand final, their celebrations were tarnished.

When the siren blew, spectators came onto the field and a brawl broke out, injuring three police officers.

More than a dozen people were charged and criminal court proceedings are still playing out.

The incident meant Yardgee’s players did not receive their premiership medallions after the match.

Yardgee assistant coach Dennis Chungulla said the brawl ruined a moment to recognise the players’ profound achievements, especially those who had used football to turn their lives around.

He said some players had been involved in youth crime, in particular stealing cars, until they were encouraged to join the club.

“We got all those young fellas in, they didn’t know they were going to make it to the grand final, they were just happy,” he said.

“When the kids know themselves they realise something, instead of skidding in cars and stealing … (they think) let’s do something for our family.”

The leader in the Halls Creek-based Indigenous community said while the league should take a harder line with violent spectators — families and elders also needed to step up.

“Respect your elder, respect your players and respect your family, that’s the most important thing,” he said.

League to crack down

Supporters from the two clubs had brawled previously in 2021, leading to spectator bans and games held without crowds.

In the lead-up to last year’s grand final brawl, clubs in Halls Creek warned the league that feuding in communities was spilling into games and could have an impact on the decider.

The league sought help from police and breathalysed spectators on entry, but it was to no avail.

EKFL president Wayne Paul said tougher measures would be considered this season.

“People have got to understand there are acceptable levels of behaviour,” he said.

“If something like that happens again we might say, ‘Right, we’ll have a grand final but there are no spectators’,” Mr Paul said.

He said the league would ban the spectators convicted by criminal courts for their involvement in the brawl for at least a year, depending on the circumstances.

“Hopefully, that’ll put the word out to the rest — if you misbehave in football you run the risk of getting a ban,” the league president said.

Halls Creek to go it alone

Football in Halls Creek has traditionally been administered from Kununurra, more than 350km to the north, under the East Kimberley Football League umbrella.

Now planning is underway for the southern division to stand alone in 2025.

Games will be played on the one oval in Halls Creek, and leaders say attracting enough officials, umpires and volunteers from that town and surrounding Indigenous communities will be a huge task.

The state government and AFL have made millions of dollars of funding available to boost football in the Kimberley, where socio-economic barriers and huge geographical distances limit its much-vaunted potential.

That cash injection has supported work on the ground by Country Football WA East Kimberley regional representative Louis Tanner, who says the grand final brawl exposed shortcomings with local capacity.

“We realised we had a few less volunteers than we needed on that day and we had to rely on police support,” he said.

This year’s football season is likely to be delayed and shortened due to upgrades on the oval.

Mr Tanner wants to kick the season off with a round robin carnival to allow teams to meet and work towards creating a smooth-running competition.

“I think the grand opening of the new oval would be a start, almost like a clean slate,” he said.

“There’s so much funding support, it’s really just looking for local leaders to step up.”