WHEN council workers and teachers lived in local towns, they played sport with local clubs.
But according to Glenn “The Oracle” Catto, times have changed and sport is missing out on numbers needed to survive and be sustainable.
Catto, a former Bridgewater footballer and one-time Inglewood tennis association president, said bigger farms and changing demographics were equal in cutting the pool of players for tennis and cricket sides.
“There have been big changes in agriculture and demographics,” said Catto.
“And sure, football is not helping. When I played football between 1982 and 1991, we’d start senior training in February ... it didn’t encroach on summer sport.
“If we weren’t fit by round one we would get our bum kicked and be expected to have good form soon after.
“Now football has much higher expectations.”
Catto said the focus of farmers, now tilling larger parcels of land than a generation ago, was on grains.
“Everything is now structured around cropping and income from crops is very important between the end of October and December - the first half of the summer sport seasons,” he said.
Catto also says time demands on family time have become tighter.
“Both mum and dad are working and the kids have jobs after school and at weekends.
“As a result, cricket and tennis have kind of gone a bit by the wayside.
“Inglewood itself in the 1970s had five sides, then there were country clubs like Arnold West. It was the country clubs who were the strength of the association when I was growing up.
“The same up north around Dingee and Yarrawalla where families were together playing sport on Saturdays.”
But Catto observes that the dearth of people taking up summer sport is not restricted to Loddon towns.
“Look at any tennis or cricket association in any area, Bendigo included, and the numbers of players and teams is not what it once was,” he said.
Catto sees opportunities for Loddon bowls clubs to attract younger players to the game.
His own Bridgewater club this year blooded three younger generation players. Inglewood gave teenager Blake Smyth a taste of premier division action in just his second year in the sport, Saturday mornings spent putting down overs in junior cricket and the afternoons on the bowling green.
Catto, who switches to football umpire in the winter months, also sees the expanding domination of football as playing a role in summer sport decline. “AFL football has become the dominant sport,” he said.
Despite the changes, Catto says summer sport will stay in Loddon towns. It might just look different.