Lying in the heart of one of the most rapidly expanding suburbs in the Hills area is Bella Vista Football Club. One of the youngest clubs in the Hills Football Association, entering only its fourth season, it’s a club that has strived to fill a void, make the community proud and grow organically with the young community.
“The club was planted in an area that had a large population but was a suburb that didn’t really have a team identity attached to it,” Bella Vista’s Club Coaching Coordinator Kienan Bear said.
“There are clubs around the area, such as Hills Spirit and Norwest, but Bella Vista was smack bang in the heart of Bella Vista. In between your Kellyville’s and your Baulkham Hills and your Rouse Hills, and even across the old Windsor Road bordering on Glenwood. It’s right smack bang in the middle of a very high-density population area that was calling out for a team that represented that suburb,” Bear said.
Growing steadily and organically was a main factor for this new club, knowing that overnight success was not a practical goal. Instead, focusing on their junior development, which they are now seeing previous juniors continuing their footballing journeys with Bella Vista and growing the number of teams they field in the junior and senior men’s and women’s competitions.
“When we first started in year one, there were plenty of miniroos teams, and there were under sevens, under eights and under nines. But there were no under-12s, no under-14s, no under-16s, nothing like that,” Bear said.
“Then this year we’ve got two under 11s, under 12’s under 13s and two under 14s. You can see the growth there just in four years. The juniors that were there in the under sevens, eights, nines and tens have obviously stayed around, and they’ve grown into a couple of consistent under 12s, 13s, 14s teams.”
“We anticipate that over the next few years that’s going to continue to grow. So that we will have under 16 teams, under 18 teams, and then that’s going to feed obviously into our all-age and hopefully sustain a Super League team as well.”
The club is looking to support their newly formed Super League side ahead of its home opener, with the club hosting its first-ever club day on Saturday. The aim is to get as many fans, parents, junior players and locals down to the ground as possible to support their team when they take on Kellyville Kolts at 3 PM, with the club halving all prices in their canteens after 1 PM as an incentive.
“We want to try and push it to be that if you are anywhere from under six up to the under-14 teams, that the Super League team is who you want to play for. We want those kids watching the Super League team being like, that’s what I want to be in five, ten, 15 years’ time, Bear said.
“The big sort of goal is to get people to identify with the club, we want them to be proud of Bella Vista as a suburb, as a club and then want to play locally.”
