One of the largest football clubs on Auckland’s North Shore is warning sports clubs could fold if more people don’t volunteer to help run them.
It comes after a New Zealand Amateur Sport Association report found club volunteers have steadily declined from a national average of 30 per club in 2018 to 17 in 2024.
Cole Hinton, the immediate past chairman of Northern Rovers Football Club, is surprised the number is that high.
Hinton, who has spent 10 of the past 15 years on the board of Glenfield Rovers and then Northern Rovers, said the attitude to volunteering reflected society’s wider dwindling willingness to help out.
It’s one of the reasons he has stepped away from a direct role in the club he played a pivotal role in creating when Glenfield Rovers merged with Forrest Hill Milford United in 2020.
