Lockhart officials launch call to arms amid player shortage for 2022 Hume League season

The Demons held a meeting on Monday night where the serious extent of their player shortage was revealed to the club's committee.

Only 'three or four' players from last year's first grade team remain at Lockhart, with senior coach Nathan McPherson estimating the club has just 13 players across both senior grades less than two months out from the start of the season.

The club has launched a plea for players, pencilling in March 7 as the deadline to make a decision whether to push on, or go into recess for the year.

Lockhart co-president Abe Wooden described the club as being in 'dire straits'.

"We've been waiting for a bit of a kickstart from all the locals to get to training but it hasn't come," Wooden said.

"It's not looking good."

Wooden said the support needed to come from locals to start with.

"We need to try and get these locals to realise how bad it actually is, because I don't think they realise," he said.

"You've only got to go down to the Ex-Servicemen's Club here and you see 10 locals that all had no idea how bad it was. They go oh crap, we might have to get to training then.

"It still doesn't feel real to them, I think. I don't think they quite believe us. I think they think we're trying to get them to training and it's the same old tricks. But we actually are in dire straits at the moment, which is a shame, because it's just our senior football.

"It's in the Hume League constitution, you can't have a club without a first grade and at the moment that's our only downfall. The rest of the club is going great guns. We've got a huge committee, everyone's keen and the new clubrooms are nearly built."

Wooden said a year's recess would have serious consequences for the entire Lockhart community.

"For the whole town, all the businesses in town would lose out on thousands of dollars, it's a ripple effect," he said.

"It's that social hub that everyone loves. The gates last year were as big as they've ever been so there's a lot of support there and it would be devastating. Especially as the clubrooms are half built, all the time and effort that's gone into getting grants, it's hours and hours and hours of work, we really don't want to see it all going to waste."

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Lockhart are adamant the rest of the club, bar the senior football numbers, is strong.

Lockhart's A grade netball team only lost two games last year before COVID brought an early end to the season.

A year's recess could spell the end of the club's netball, according to A grade coach Jemima Norbury, who has loved her brief time at the club and described the culture as 'amazing'.

"We did the ring around and got the confirmation of players in October last year. So we've already put the hard yards in...and I honestly don't think the netball would recover. I don't think it would," Norbury said.

"If you've started the hard work and you've started your pre-season and you're getting into the swing of it then you're going to want to play. You would find somewhere. Especially when there are clubs around, that are close, that are going to field teams. Collingullie is just down the road, Osborne is just down the road, and once you lose them, especially considering the bulk of the players that are at the club, 90 per cent of them are locals, so if you lose those locals to other clubs, you've got nowhere to pull from and I honestly don't think it would recover."

The answer is for those connected to Lockhart to answer the club's call and help dig the club out of a hole, according to Wooden.

"If we can get the word out there and they realise we are in trouble and we do need help, we need those blokes, local or not, to come back and help the club for this 12 months because to be completely honest, in 2023, we're looking pretty good," Wooden said.

"We've got a coach hopefully signed up and 2023 is looking really good. We've had a lot of commitment, it's just getting through this 12 months that we need help with, just getting us out of this hole, because if we do go into recess then all of a sudden 2023 doesn't look so good and there is a lot of question marks."

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