Katherine Community Indoor Sports Centre have become the latest centre to team up with the Australian Futsal Association through our affiliate scheme.
Our partners in Northern Territory will introduce Futsal to their long list of sports on offer for the first ever time.
We spoke to Nicole Thomson, co-owner of Katherine Community Indoor Sports Centre, who has been instrumental in reinvigorating this community hub in 2021. She said:
“We’re a very new organisation, we only started up this year. So far, we’ve had volleyball, netball and cricket playing in here and we’re about to start Futsal this season.
“I’ve lived in Katherine my whole life, it’s a really great community to live in. My business partner and I wanted to give back and by creating a community sports centre that helps to get everyone involved, we were able to do that.
“The indoor sports centre has been here for about 30 years, but the previous owners retired about 15 years ago, and the shed has been empty since. So, we wrote them a proposal to say what we wanted to do, and they were completely on board with it. They’ve been really helpful.”
The ‘shed’ had been left nearly abandoned for over a decade, but Nicole and her business partner were more than happy to get their hands dirty and contribute to its dramatic makeover. She added:
“The biggest thing was the infrastructure, it’s a really good, solid shed but the electrical, the plumbing etc. was quite dated.
“I spent a lot of time doing the mechanical side of it, I’m a mechanic by trade and an electrician, so I do a lot of the general maintenance and repairs as well.”
Nicole also discussed how her affinity with Futsal was born, through her life-long love for sport. She explained:
“I played soccer for state and for school, but in the territory, if you run fast, you can pretty much do anything!”
“My real passion was BMX. I’ve done BMX since I was about 3 years old. My brother does it and from a young age I just thought I wanted to do that too. It’s such a good sport, you can travel everywhere and because the community is so small, everyone is quite tight knit, so if you want to travel you can stay with others you already know. I’ve been to almost every state and territory in Australia now!”
Nicole continued:
“I’ve got a couple of friends in soccer, and they suggested Futsal, a couple of years ago I hadn’t even heard of it. But after doing a bit of research I was really interested so I thought ‘why not?’, there’s already a big soccer organisation in the town so maybe this could offer something a little different.
“I’m really excited to see some of the local kids get the chance to travel through this partnership. I’d love to see kids from surrounding areas come to Katherine for their Futsal, play for their teams, then perhaps get the chance to travel away to represent us in other states. It’s an opportunity for a lot of these kids that they wouldn’t usually get.”
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