For this week’s WA On Wednesday feature, Impetus’ Ben Gilby spoke to Campbell Ballantyne, president of Curtin University. The club’s senior NPLW WA and U21 sides had exceptionally tough seasons which both ended winless. Campbell reflects on the campaign and outlines how the club are looking to become a more competitive outfit for 2023.
Above: Curtin University (orange and black) in possession against Perth SC this season. Photo: Rob Lizzi.
A glimpse at the NPLW WA final table for 2022 makes grim reading for those at Curtin University. Only two points from 21 games, and a campaign that has seen three head coaches at the helm. For President Campbell Ballantyne, the club were battling with one hand tied behind their back from the early days of the season.
“A head coach who was given control of the budget and all the pre-season planning walking out on the girls and the team after four games. Everything from there was trying to patch over these problems.
“When Dom Gangemi walked out, Les Cavil was kind enough to quickly step in as caretaker while we ran an application process. He choose not to apply and Hassan Al-ahmad applied for the job and was successful.
“I think all players who stuck with the team did very well in very difficult circumstances highlighting any one of them would be a challenge.
In order to become a far more competitive outfit in the NPLW WA next season, Ballantyne has already laid in place some changes.
“We have plans to over double the budget that we allocate to our NPLW team. We will stand by our ethos of allocation even budgets to both our men’s and women’s first teams, we are still the only club that has publicly announced that.
“We are open to any players looking to join us for 2023 and we are likely to revisit our imports strategy that was destroyed by COVID in 2020. We have every intention of attracting players back from the eastern states too.”
In terms of the club’s playing staff during the season just finished, Curtin’s president spoke of his concern about a development that has recently come to light.
“We were very disappointed to learn through a season report published online by another website that a player we had on a professional contract had been allowed to move clubs within the NPLW WA without my knowledge or consent. We will also be pushing Football West hard on upholding pro contracts and trying to drive up the professionalism of women’s sport.”
With the club looking to build their squad, there are other areas of the Curtin set-up which have Ballantyne’s attention at the present time. The club’s home ground at Edinburgh Oval is in need of an upgrade to ensure it can get closer to the standards of other NPLW WA venues. The club president has a sense of frustration at the speed of these developments.
“We are constantly lobbying both the university to improve facilities and Football West to produce the timeline of facility improvements that were promised when the league was launched in 2020. This framework is key to taking to land owners (the university) to get a result.
“I have been told two projects for better access to more public toilets and a new storage area have been approved. Unfortunately, the university retracted the consent they provided for a perimeter fence in 2020.”
Campbell Ballantyne has made clear his plans for improvements at Curtin University for 2023 – for the sake of increasing the competitive nature of the NPLW WA, these need to be able to bear fruit.
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