Wembley Downs Junior Football Club has in excess of 550 members with the membership growing each year, averaging 10 per cent for the past 5 years plateauing over the last two years during which the club has turned away players as we have reached team and player number capacity.

The Club is recognised as having one of the most supportive Club cultures across the District. This has been validated in 2015, 2016 and 2021 when WDJFC won the award for the ‘Junior Club of the year’ in the Claremont District. They have a great philosophy of player development over winning and this strong ethos has seen the Club grow in numbers significantly over the last few years.

This project is seen as critical to ensure that the Club can continue to prosper and have a base within in the City of Stirling at AS Luketina Reserve. The upgrade will allow a successful girl’s football program, greater flexibility in scheduling more teams during training times and will allow increased numbers of player participation with the Club in line with increasing the reserve capacity.

Five years ago The Wembley Downs Junior Football Cub resolved to facilitate girls from the local district to be able to play AFL football. This resulted in a strategic plan to introduce teams of continuing age groups through successive years. The entry of a year 9-10 team into the competition this year is part of the long-term plan to add a girls’ team in every year.

2020 – WDJFC enter girls’ team in Years 3-4

2021 – WDJFC enter girls’ teams in Years 5-6

2022 – WDJFC enter girls’ teams in Years 7-8

2023 – WDJFC enter Girls’ teams in years 9-10

As the Wembley Downs Junior Football Club draws players form a large catchment area within the City of Stirling and the Town of Cambridge this is an important community initiative to enable local girls to play AFL football.

As an example on our success in this area, last year when we looked to bring the year 5-6 girls into the competition the interest and registrations of the girls was so high that while we could accommodate all girls in training, we have had to roster some off for games. In the 2022 season we had one year 3/4 team, two year 5/6 teams and introduced a Year 7/8 girls’ team.

Within our Metro North - WA competition Girls AFL competition games are on a Friday night under lights. The lights at AS Luketina Oval are rated at 50 Lux. The WAFC Junior Football Rules Regulations Handbook shows that while the WAFC regulations allow competition matches to be played under light conditions of 50 Lux for year 3/4 and Year 5/6 competitions the minimum requirement for older age groups is 100 Lux.

As such we do not have a home ground for our Girls teams older than the Year 6 age group and in reality, the current lights only cover a minority of the Reserve and do not provide a welcoming environment for night-time sport. This is making it very hard to attract and keep girls and parents enthused about the club and with no home playing facilities particularly difficult for older girls in the year 7 and 8 team. While we have managed to work with other clubs in the district to play our home games at other grounds this is a less than ideal situation and will in time lead to the lack of girls coming back to play AFL football in future years and likely lead to the collapse of the program to introduce girls over the year 6 age group.

Hence without the lighting upgrade it is likely that the program to have girls’ teams above year 6 will falter.

In addition Wembley Downs Junior Football Club and AS Luketina Reserve is at capacity for training facilities. The current lights only allow a partial use of the oval for training at night which is sufficient for early age boys and girls but not for youth teams. The lights upgrade will increase the training capacity of the ground to enable two teams to train on the oval at the same time and provide a fit for purpose training facility for youth teams.