Lions and Roos to kick off NAIDOC Week celebrations

(L-R) Belmont SC and Anakie FNC players Shaun Jubber, Daniel Bunworth, Tegan Edwards, Aimee Burgess, Brent Vermeulen and Mason Rhodes at Winter Reserve ahead of this week's NAIDOC Week game. Photo: VINNIE VAN OORSCHOT

BELMONT Lions Sports Club’s annual NAIDOC Week Game will be a standalone Sunday fixture for the first time when it welcomes Anakie Football Netball Club to its biggest day of the year.

The matches this Sunday, July 2 between the Lions and the Roos at Winter Reserve will bring Indigenous culture to the forefront of local sport, with both clubs featuring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island artwork on their guernseys.

It is the first time Anakie will participate in Belmont’s NAIDOC Week game, and Roos player-coach Daniel Bunworth said it would be a massive day for his club.

“We know how much emphasis Belmont places on this particular game each year, hosting clubs like Corio, East Geelong and Bannockburn, so we’re really excited to be a part of it this year.

“Last year we tried to hold a similar day at our own club, because one of our netballers has Indigenous heritage and we wanted to highlight that.

“We were stoked with how the uniforms came together.”

Anakie’s new Indigenous football jumper, proposed by Roos player Eliot Birch, was worn against Geelong West ahead of NAIDOC Week last year.

Birch’s wife Alana and children Krue and Madden are members of the Kungarkan and Gurrinji nations in the Northern Territory and the Badu people in the Torres Strait Islands.

In late May, Belmont unveiled its new First Nations football and netball uniforms, and netballer and Wathaurong Gunditjmara Arrernte woman Tegan Edwards was among the first to wear it ahead of the club’s fixture against Inverleigh.

“I was lucky enough to be asked to do the Smoking Ceremony this year, so that’s something that I’ve grown up doing being a part of culture, it makes me feel special,” she said.

“It’s such a good day and it gees you up, I get goosebumps just thinking about it.”

Belmont’s uniform was designed by Wathaurong Co-operative representative and Wemba Wemba man David Flagg.

Anakie’s football guernsey and polo were designed by Echuca-based Indigenous mother and daughter artists Neva Takele and Desrae Atkinson.