Our Board - John Keirs
Born 1946, happily married since 1970, three great boys, six wonderful grandchildren.
Interests
Naturally-football. Golf, rugby league, cricket, heck! all sports! Travelling, reading. Committee member Tracey Village Social & Sports Club.
Director & Life Member
John has had over 40 years involvement in the growth of football in the Northern Territory. He came to
Darwin late 1966, having played in Sydney with & against the likes of Corry, Watkiss, Warren, Schienflug etc. John played with & captained/coached Helenic Athletic Soccer Club when he arrived in Darwin and played with the “one year wonder team’ Kozonis under Sam Salapasides. John was named vice captain of the Territory team to go to Timor in the early 70’s, which trip never went ahead due to the Indonesian invasion. Several knee operations & Cyclone Tracey cut his playing days short.
There was no structured junior soccer when John arrived in Darwin. With Klaus Bombojack, whom knew John when he was playing in Sydney, they organized games at Chrisp St oval in Nightcliff on Saturdays. It started with only a few kids but grew quickly, they bought cheap T shirts of different colours red, yellow, green, blue, etc. Kids were of all ages up to 16, the kids were mixed into different coloured teams each weekend. Shortly after they had enough kids to fill several teams. Eventually, red became Alawa, green Parap, yellow Stuart Park, blue became the red white & blue of Larrakeyah the kids chose the colours of the then favoured Footscray in the VFL. The games got restructured for Sunday mornings at Fannie Bay oval about 1970.The game was based around the suburbs and eventually more & more teams were established. Soon games were being played on Wulagi, Wanguri, Jingili,Malak & Fannie Bay.
As Darwin grew the inner suburbs and older suburbs junior teams such as, Larrakeyah, Parap, Milner, Rapid Creek, Nightcliff, Alawa, Jingili & Moil, which were the corner stone of the junior competition for several years ceased to exist in the 80’s as the city’s demographics changed. Hence now, the juniors are now senior club based.
John entered two teams from the Darwin Junior Soccer Association made up mainly of 16year olds in the senior men’s Darwin Soccer competition at Gardens Oval. Stuart Park & Rapid Creek. Stuart Park played in orange & later yellow and is now known as Mindil Aces.
Rapid Creek didn’t have the same success, but played in their existing purple strip, the name was later changed to Audax (believed to be Italian for ‘Action”).
John established the Darwin Junior Soccer Association, designed the buffalo head & football logo & gained affiliation with the Australian Junior Soccer Council. He took our first representative team away to the National under 16 titles as coach about 1969, and then, with Klaus the infamous & still the most talked about soccer trip, “the around Australia bus tour” with 48 kids from 10 to 16. The teams played at a couple of venues in all states except WA. It took about 4 weeks a local tour bus was hired, Fentons Tours, with two drivers, Warren Fenton & Reg.
Soccer grew fast & many very good & influential people became involved, soon almost every suburb was playing in a well structured Sunday competition. In the late 70’s early 80’s the competition boasted 2 & 3 divisions in some of the age groups. The Territory titles were established to be contested each year on the Queen’s Birthday weekend, Gove, Alice, Borooloola, Katherine, Tennant, & Mt Isa attended and the NT under age teams were selected to attend the National Titles. The venues for the NT Championships were alternated year by year & were sponsored by the NT Credit Society.
When television came to Darwin John & Klaus co hosted a weekly, live, black & white TV program where a junior player of the round “an up coming star” was a guest, they received a pair of boots courtesy of Rosseto’s Sports Store, the program gave results & the next weeks draw as well as other junior soccer news etc. The show was sponsored by Geoff Hardwick from Motorama. As John recalls it was the first live sports show for Darwin & featured juniors only.
John was instrumental in the establishment of The Northern Territory Junior Soccer Federation in the 70’s as was required for affiliation with the then National body. John was the representative on the National Junior Council for several years. John coached many NT teams at National Titles & preferred to take them progressively through from 13 to 15yo. Then start with a fresh group of 13’s every fourth year.
John has held many & various executive positions on the different evolving bodies which from time to time have been in control of administering the game in the Territory. John has been a director on the existing board since the restructure took place in 2004.
Employment
John has worked mainly in the areas of finance, posted to Darwin in ‘66 with a bank. He retired in 2000 after almost twenty years with Government. He has worked for the past five years on a part time & casual basis assisting people who have a wide range of diverse disabilities.
John has been involved in football in the top end for over 40 years, both as a player, coach and administrator.
