Sanctions for unacceptable behaviour will resume in Illawarra football clubs for the foreseeable future. In the 2024 Football South Coast (FSC) Men’s Premiership, there were 27 breaches for team misconduct offences (where a team receives five yellow cards in a match). Less than halfway through the 2025 season, there have already been 22 breaches. The number of red cards that were handed out in 2024 is on par with the current 2025 season, showcasing a trend of continuing bad behaviour in local sports. Rex Leighton has served as FSC’s Disciplinary Commissioner for 14 years, while also representing the Association…
Author: Timothy Gibson
Football South Coast’s Walk the Field 2025 will get underway on Saturday, with the tournament doubling in numbers from 15 teams to around 30 teams this time around. Walk the Field 2025 is a walking football tournament in Wollongong aimed at Women over 40 and Men over 50 as a social day out on the field. As part of their course, some University of Wollongong marketing students have facilitated this year’s event, attracting sponsors and working out the logistics for the day. The project was originally set up by UOW academic Dr Mercedez Hinchcliff in 2023, and is now run…
Parishioners and church goers have noticed fewer musicians are playing at their services. Some services, including funerals, are now conducted with no music at all. Parishioner and choir member at St John Bosco Parish in Engadine, Bridget Cartwright said there are less young people involved in music at mass than there were 10 years ago. Listen below: Tim Gibson · Church musician exodus causing song-less worship “The younger people aren’t coming through. They don’t have time in their busy lives to participate or to want to practice,” Mrs Cartwright said. “They don’t like the music. It’s not modern enough…
Walking around Building 29 and Building 25, you may notice a notice board with Post-It notes stuck to it. This is part of a new initiative by some creative arts students to create more relationships as well as to improve their skills and projects. It involves students writing down what they need on a Post-It with their details and placing it on the board, where other students will be in touch if they would like to help. The Post-Its are then put onto the UOW Post-It Instagram page to increase exposure. Aden Jones is one of the students behind the…
On Tuesday, October 15, 2024, Rewiring Australia announced the roadmap for their Electrify 2515 Pilot, which is set to begin in December 2024. Electrify 2515 is a project that aims to ‘electrify’ 500 homes in the Illawarra region through subsidy assistance. Engineer Dr Saul Griffith dreamed up the project and has helped design the program, also previously founded Rewiring America. Residents in the northern suburbs from Thirroul to Clifton can apply for subsidies of up to $1000 off electric hot water systems, reverse cycle air conditioners and induction cooktops. There are also subsidies available for rooftop solar. Federal Energy and…
The Australia Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released data showing a 17.9 per cent rise in the value of new housing loans since March 2023. The data reflects the Reserve Bank of Australia increasing cash interest rates 13 times over the last two years to combat inflation. As the price of homes and loan repayments have risen, so too has financial pressure caused by increased household items. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) measures the percentage change in the price of a basket of goods and services consumed by households and is a strong indicator of inflation. Sutherland Shire mortgage broker…
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has published data showing a 6.1 per cent decrease in job vacancies from November 2023 to February 2024. Despite this decline, which suggests that more Australians are securing employment, many continue to face challenges in the job market. “Job vacancies are now 23.5 per cent lower than they were at their peak in May 2022. However, they remain well above the pre-COVID-19 pandemic level and are still 59.8 per cent higher than February 2020, or around 136,000 more vacancies,” Bjorn Jarvis, ABS head of labour statistics said. Kingsley, an engineer with three years experience,…
A record crowd at Wollongong’s WIN Stadium sat in anticipation as the 2023 Men’s Illawarra Premier League Grand Final entered its final stages; Coniston – a club recently confined to community-competition obscurity – looked like it was about to return to its former glory and raise the Illawarra’s historic football trophy. When referee Andrew Naylor blew his whistle to confirm the fairy tale, fiery dynamite-shaped sticks were hurled onto the pitch. Fans squirmed away from the smoke filling the ground, while those on the grass dodged the projectiles. It was a story of flares: the climax of a troublesome year…