Volunteers like South United FC’s Daniel York are the beating heart of football clubs across northern NSW.
York is South United’s president and has been involved with the Northern Inland club for 22 years.
“I started playing juniors at South United FC when I was five and I’m 27 this year, while I became president at the end of 2023 at the AGM,” York said.
“I had been part of the club for a while and I was on the committee for a bit, so I wanted to help. Obviously, everyone that sort of goes into this role sees something that they want to change and there's only one way to really change it, which is putting your hand up for it. So, I thought I might as well go for it.
“I got quite a quite a bit of backing from a lot of my mates who also play at the club as well as the committee at the time.
“It definitely helps to also be a player because you're already there. You're around the club on a Saturday and you see what goes on and what maybe should go on.”
The club has grown tremendously during Yorke’s time as president but he was not planning on slowing down anytime soon.
“Our numbers have risen each year. We've implemented a heap of different things to up our numbers. We do store visits, shopping centre visits, more registration days,” Yorke said.
“My main goal when I took over was to raise our junior numbers, which have substantially grown each year.
“A lot of our rising numbers are through our juniors with the [Coles] MiniRoos, so entry level 5 to 7.
“We went from only having previously one or two teams around that age group to now one in every age group and some of them having multiple teams and a large growing number of that is female as well.
“Obviously, [the] job is not done, we want to keep those numbers driving but at the moment we’re very happy with how everything's gone.”
Yorke said the best part of volunteering was making a positive change within his club.
“I think it's just rewarding to be president. It's great to see how the club has changed in the last couple years and it feels very rewarding to be able to do that,” Yorke said.
“I guess for a club that I really care about it's not like I'm just doing it to pass the time. It's something that I'm quite passionate about.
“We try to help out with parents and players in coaching junior teams. It can be seen as a thankless job, so we try to make it worth their time. Whether we’re hooking them up with merchandise or helping them with their kid's registration or their own registration, we want to change the stigma around it being a thankless job, we want it to be a thank you.”
Football thrives on volunteers and Yorke encouraged everyone to give back to their community.
“To anyone that is thinking about being a volunteer, know it's very rewarding. It might not feel like it sometimes, sometimes you might look at it from the outside in and go, ‘why am I doing this?’ But 98 per cent of the time, it's very rewarding,” Yorke said.
“You have a lot of fun along the way. You meet a lot of new people and you actually get to learn a lot about the game.”
Registrations for the 2026 season are now open. Find out more and register to be a volunteer HERE.