A Central Australian football program that has changed lives with a tiny budget is set to receive an extraordinary $57 million donation from Brisbane-based construction magnates.
The Redtails Pinktails Right Tracks Foundation, now a registered charity organisation after previously being known as Central Australian Football Club, had run for 14 years on the sniff of “an oily rag” until this donation, founder and president Rob Clarke said.
A $57 million donation will help the Redtails Pinktails Right Tracks Foundation change more lives.
The program aims to mentor and help marginalised young people in Alice Springs, Tennant Creek and remote communities gain employment and become community leaders, while also presenting a football pathway to play in the Northern Territory and South Australian leagues.
That cause caught the attention of Q H & M Birt director Quentin Birt and his wife Kylie, the earthmoving company’s financial manager, who travelled to Alice Springs last month before revealing their generous pledge.
“We borrowed office space from one of our board members – because we’ve never had anywhere to present anything – and we put big posters around the room of all the success stories, and did a presentation [to the Birts],” Clarke told The Age.
“I reckon three-quarters of the way through, Quentin said, ‘I’ve seen enough; this is what we’re after’ … they wanted something that, in their minds, was advancing Indigenous outcomes, but inclusively – and in line with mainstream society.
The Redtails Pinktails Right Tracks Foundation is set to receive a $57 million donation.
“He goes, ‘I’m going to give you $57 million’. I think I swore, and Kylie says, ‘You heard him right’. I looked over at ‘Macca’ [foundation vice-president Ian McAdam], and he was just dumbfounded.”
The Birts learned about Clarke’s foundation through NT senator and opposition spokesperson for Indigenous Australians Jacinta Nampijinpa Price.
The Redtails and Pinktails train on an oval without goalposts that has a concrete cricket pitch in the middle and a running track around it, so the Birts’ intervention means they can suddenly dream far bigger.
Even with major limitations, they have mentored countless young men and women who became positive role models in their community, as well as others who progressed to the highest levels in football, including Sarah Steele-Park, who Sydney drafted in December.
Clarke’s and McAdam’s vision is for the lion’s share of the Birts’ donation to go towards establishing an educational precinct with accommodation for up to 48 people at Alice Springs’ Traeger Park.
“We want everyone in the community working together to provide opportunities to not just our most marginalised, but obviously, we’re aiming for that,” Clarke said.
“We want to embrace every school, whether in Alice, Tennant Creek or remote, and we would have pathways for employment and sensible certificates within the facility to organise driver’s licenses for those who basically drive around without them, and help them get the tools to be employable.
“This is all the stuff that we’ve been working on, but we would have a facility to do it in.”
An aerial view of Traeger Park, in Alice Springs in 2020.Credit: Getty Images
The idea is for Traeger Park to receive an upgrade of its high-performance facilities as well.
The foundation has also asked the federal government and the opposition, for $2.8 million annually to run the program and maintain the proposed precinct.
Whether that request is granted will determine how much of the money goes towards the precinct, which Clarke hopes will eventually incorporate many sports other than football.
They had discussions with people involved in cricket, rugby, softball, netball, tennis and baseball while completing a feasibility study for the business case they presented to the Birts and other potential donors.
“Not every Indigenous kid is a great footballer. How do we know there’s not a world champion surfer living at Lajamanu? We don’t know because they’ve never had the opportunity to try it,” Clarke said.
“As soon as you give someone purpose, if they haven’t got it, it changes their natural ability to navigate … it changes all that simplistic stuff we take for granted because it’s been taught, or the opportunity has been given to us.”
Clarke has never run the Redtails and Pinktails program as a typical football club.
“If your intention is just to play sport and not try and better yourself, through school and/or school and employment, then it’s a ‘no’,” he said.
“We’ve also got the Rusted Gems program [within the foundation], which has been going for three years, and we get old cars, and the young lads and girls do them up, and we put them in the Red Centre NATS each year.
“The program is designed to find what these young people are passionate about … so then they’ve got some purpose. As soon as you’ve got purpose, then you can start instilling discipline, for want of a better description, and you’re not chasing them for it because they want to be there. That’s the difference.”
The Redtails Pinktails Right Tracks Foundation also runs education sessions with other local clubs on drug and alcohol awareness, smoking and vaping, employment strategies and domestic violence.
