Few Tasmanian football clubs have married success on and off the field quite as successfully as Devonport Strikers.
The last decade has yielded six statewide men’s titles, two runners-up finishes where the championship was up for grabs until the final game and two third places, while the club’s arrival into the Women’s Super League was followed by finishes of fourth, third, second and first and they remain on course for a second-straight unbeaten double.
But operating hand-in-hand with this phenomenal run has been progress beyond the touchline as Valley Road has transformed into one of Tasmania’s best football grounds and a fitting venue for this season’s statewide cup finals.
With Football Australia’s July Club Changer theme of infrastructure, investment and partnerships, Strikers were an obvious selection for Tasmania’s club of the month.
Having taken over as president seven years ago, Drew Smith has overseen a club transformation which he said is far from finished.
“We set the goal of creating a facility that could host elite-level content and players would want to come and play at,” he said.
“The ultimate vision is a boutique facility that can seat 4000-5000 people. We want to be able to host elite-level football, we want to be the northern home of a Tasmanian A-League team and we want to be the Northern home of football.”
Fundamental to the Valley Road masterplan has been relationships with key stakeholders including Devonport City Council, local residents, club membership, all levels of government and Football Tasmania.
“We’ve worked really hard on building and maintaining relationships with those key stakeholders and I think our secret is that we have just been consistent,” Smith said. “We’ve kept at it and kept at it. Everything we’ve put forward has been supported by business cases and I think a lot of what we’ve achieved has been due to our persistence.
“We always communicate on matters of importance around the club. You have to keep communication channels open, clear and direct because you can’t drop surprises on your key stakeholders. I don’t know how many times I’ve presented to council on what the club is doing.”
Opened last month, the $7.5 million 660-seat Gordon Rimmer Stand incorporated $3m from the Federal Government’s contribution to Devonport City Council’s sports infrastructure masterplan, $3m from the state government as part of the Women’s World Cup legacy program and $1.5m from council.
A development application has also been approved for another 1000-seat stand at the western end of Valley Road estimated at costing $1.7m and Smith believes the club now have the best facilities in the state.
Another key pillar the club identified was to improve its female program. Former player and coach Mal Gorrie took charge as Devonport landed a WSL licence and began investing in female-specific facilities.
The club decided it wanted female players to experience the same level of coaching expertise as male and two years ago appointed Englishman Tom Ballantyne as coach of both programs.
“The feedback we’ve had is that the girls have never had coaching like it,” Smith said. “How many women’s teams in Australia have the opportunity to have a pro licence coach?
“The last decade has been a period of unbelievable success for our men but we always felt at some stage our women’s program would become more successful.”
Smith said maintaining on-field and off-field success will be pivotal to Strikers’ future.
“Running a club is a marathon not a sprint and you’ve got to focus on what the finish line is going to look like. And there are times in that marathon where you’ve got to up the tempo and run harder and we were very aware that because of our significant on-field success that we had a window and needed to jump through it.
“We didn’t know how long that would be - no-one ever does. Little did we know that we were going to be very successful for the whole decade and there’s no doubt that on-field success helps drive off-field success.
“It’s been a very heavy engagement process and there were times when we were really up against it, but we just continued to back ourselves.”