Volunteer Spotlight: Terry Wong
Throughout National Volunteer Week, Football NSW is highlighting the contributions of various members of grassroots football that have been nominated by their local community.
Terry is our Coaching Coordinator and a committee member at the club. Terry started coaching with the club more than a decade ago, when his oldest child started out in under 6s. In his words, he did this because she asked, and who can say no to that!
But for Terry this was the start of building something very special in our Club. From having first hand experience of the challenges for new coaches, he set about developing his own skills and revolutionising our coach development program, and our training and games for our Little Lions. Terry brought his professional skills and experience, but also his good sense, his coaching knowledge and his commitment to this task. He took on the role of Coach Coordinator and identified and recruited a dedicated technical director, with whom he worked to develop the Little Lions program. This means that new coaches to our club come into a highly organised program with amazing support from Terry as Coach Coordinator, and more importantly, the kids have a (literal and metaphorical) ball at training!
But Terry didn’t stop there. He also supports all the other coaches in the club, has built an amazing network for them, provides regular support with coaching session guides each week. He also established our Mini-Cubs (3-5 year old program) but more importantly mentored enthusiastic young players in the club, most notably his daughter Briana (who has been his offsider since his early coaching days) to run this program – again, sharing his skills, knowledge and passion for the game.
Terry has also been our Vice President, and is the champion of sponsorship for the Club. He is an amazing builder of networks and community. He has initiated a fantastic range of programs at our club to develop players and coaches, including our Skills Sessions (which are free to participants, and focused on new players), our Coach Education Sessions (which feature experienced coaches and sports leaders) and in 2024 he led successful grants that will enable our club to implement a female leadership program, further skills development for female coaches and our first ever all abilities program for female players. Terry is the champion and leader of these activities.
Terry has a wonderful and innovative approach to creating a supportive environment for children to develop sport. He initiated a “Silent Sidelines” campaign at our club to encourage parents and supporters to allow kids to learn by communicating with each other (this was featured in the media at the time). He then developed that to be our “Supportive Sidelines” policy which is implemented every weekend for the young players.
Terry also fosters a spirit of fair play. In 2023, Terry was the initial champion and the driver of the Stand In Support Of Referees campaign that was supported by every club in our Association, and Canterbury Referees Association, in response to the attack on referee Khodr Yaghi. The idea for this gesture by players and clubs came up in discussion with Terry’s own Strathfield team, and Terry carried forward the idea to our club, and then worked with other clubs to provide an amazing show of support that will be continued into future years.
In addition, Terry is always at the ground on the weekends helping out, whether it is with barbecue, or with support for ground managers and coaches, or for our game leaders and mini-cubs and all abilities programs. His commitment to community football is outstanding, and on top of that he always provides wise counsel and great judgment for the HPW Committee.
