“No one can stop you from starting Auskick”.
With those words, football began its resurrection in Newport.
An Auskick centre was born and the Newport Power Junior Football Club arrived two years later in 2006.
The Power – the club no one initially wanted to see created – celebrated its 10th anniversary at the weekend and is living up to its name as an emerging powerhouse of sport in the west.
The club has on its books more than 700 kids who are playing football, netball and basketball.
Power president Stephen Martyn recalls a time when even the Western Region Football League didn’t want to see football return to Newport.
“We built it from the ground up and you can take that literally – from nothing,” he said.
“I was living at Seabrook for a while … I came back to Newport in 2002 … I thought, this is ridiculous, there’s nothing. You could take your son for a kick-to-kick in the park, but that was it.
“Myself and a group of mates said, ‘let’s get something going’. We really struggled to start a footy club.”
He said the leagues didn’t want Newport back in because of “problems with the seniors in years past”.
“I put in a few inquiries and they said, ‘No one can stop you from starting Auskick – get an Auskick going, show how it can run’.”
The first year Auskick was run in Newport, it was named western suburbs’ centre of the year.
“That was our seed in the ground and from that we put our first sides on the park in 2006,” Martyn said.
Eventually, the Power will have seniors, but the club is in no rush to get them up and running. The club is out-growing its Bryan Martyn Oval facilities and will continue to lobby the council for a second oval.
For now, the Power has to be content with an under-18 team that is seen as role model for the other juniors at the club.
“The plan is to continue to grow and make sure it’s nice and strong so we can eventually launch into seniors,” Martyn said.
It is an all-inclusive, multicultural club that reflects the evolving demographic of the suburb.
“We’re doing our job, helping the community and making sure everyone has accessibility to health and fitness,” Martyn said. “My late father, Bryan, said if we can provide a safe, healthy environment for kids the whole community will benefit, and how right he was.”
