The Hobart Cup Has Finally Cracked the Media Code

Apparently, all we needed was a plover

I really do not have time to write this.

I am, quite genuinely, ridiculously busy with the Hobart Cup.

There are 324 teams, hundreds of games, venues all over Hobart, referees, volunteers, equipment, parking, weather forecasts, last-minute questions, roster changes and several thousand children about to descend on us.

So naturally, at an hour when sensible people are asleep, I am writing about a plover.

Because sometimes something is just too ridiculous not to write about.

For Years, I Have Been Doing This All Wrong

For years I have apparently been going about football promotion entirely the wrong way.

I thought the secret might be good football.

Perhaps 324 teams.

Maybe more than 4,000 children playing across Hobart over one weekend.

Possibly the hundreds of coaches, referees, volunteers and parents who somehow make the whole thing work.

No.

Turns out what we really needed was a plover.

More specifically, a Masked Lapwing with excellent timing and, judging by events this week, a considerably better understanding of media relations than I do.

Wentworth Park 3 Has a New Tenant

With the Hobart Cup only days away, our feathered friend decided that Wentworth Park 3 looked like an ideal place to raise a family.

Unfortunately, we had also decided that Wentworth Park 3 looked like an ideal place to play football.

The plover won.

As it should.

Masked Lapwings are protected native birds and once we knew there was an active nest on the ground, that was that.

Wentworth Park 3 came out of the Hobart Cup.

Simple.

Except, of course, nothing involving a 324-team football tournament is ever simple.

Just Move the Games Somewhere Else

That sounds easy, doesn't it?

Just move the games.

The problem is that when you are running a tournament of this size, there really isn't a convenient spare football ground sitting somewhere in Hobart waiting for you to discover it on Tuesday.

We had already spent an extraordinary number of hours building the roster.

Every team needs its games.

Different age groups need different sized pitches.

Some teams have travel considerations.

Some venues can handle certain age groups and not others.

Some grounds have lights.

Some don't.

Some have parking problems.

Some have multiple pitches squeezed into every available piece of grass.

And, by the time you get to Cup week, almost every useful bit of football turf in Hobart already has someone's name on it.

So losing Wentworth Park 3 meant sections of the roster had to be pulled apart and rebuilt.

Under-13s.

Under-14s.

Under-15/16s.

Boys.

Girls.

Different venues.

Different kick-off times.

Families needing to know where they are going.

Teams needing enough time to get from one game to another.

It is basically a giant game of Tetris, except the pieces are football teams and if you get it wrong someone's child is expected to be in Howrah and North Hobart at the same time.

Please Don't Panic, We Have Just Run Out of Grass

That was more or less where we found ourselves.

The message to everyone was simple.

Please wait for the revised roster.

Everyone will still play.

We will sort it out.

Behind the scenes, of course, there were a few rather long hours involved. Thanks Emma and Frances.

There is always something with the Hobart Cup.

Weather.

Ground closures.

Lights.

Goals.

Referees.

Parking.

Late withdrawals.

Teams entering under slightly different names.

Someone discovering on Thursday that their coach is unavailable on Saturday morning.

You expect those things.

I will admit that "protected bird has taken possession of one of our pitches" was not particularly high on my contingency planning list.

It probably will be now.

And Then Something Extraordinary Happened

The media became interested.

Really interested.

Not because more than 4,000 young footballers were about to play across Hobart.

Not because hundreds of volunteers were preparing to give up most of their weekend.

Not because organising more than 740 games across three days is, when you stop and think about it, slightly insane.

Not because junior football clubs from across Tasmania were coming together for one enormous weekend of football.

Because of the plover.

Pulse Tasmania ran with:

"Nesting plover upends 320 team soccer cup."

And then ABC Radio got in touch and asked me to talk about it.

At which point I realised something.

We have finally cracked the media code.

Forget the Press Release

This changes everything.

For years football administrators have written media releases.

We have produced statistics.

We have sent photographs.

We have talked about participation numbers, volunteers, pathways, community involvement and the growth of the game.

Apparently this has all been a terrible waste of time.

The answer was wildlife.

Next year I am changing the entire Hobart Cup communications strategy.

No media release.

No carefully prepared tournament preview.

No emails explaining that thousands of children are about to play football all over the city.

We simply need animals.

The 2027 Hobart Cup Media Strategy

Wentworth Park already has the plover.

Excellent start.

Cornelian Bay could perhaps arrange a penguin.

Queens Walk feels like a sulphur-crested cockatoo venue.

Sandown Park might require something slightly more dramatic. A wedge-tailed eagle would certainly give us some coverage, although I suspect there may be additional risk-assessment paperwork involved.

West Hobart needs something endangered, preferably photogenic and with a strong social media following.

If we allocate one native animal to every venue, I am confident that by Friday afternoon we will have television crews stationed around Hobart.

The ABC will be doing live crosses.

Pulse will have a rolling blog.

Someone will launch a petition.

And all 324 football teams can quietly get on with playing their games in the background.

There Is Something Quite Lovely About It

The truth is, underneath all the jokes, I actually love this story.

Because the bird wins.

And it should.

We have spent months organising this tournament and, for a couple of frantic days, one tiny part of it has been turned upside down because a native bird chose exactly the wrong patch of grass, from our point of view, to build a nest.

So we move.

The bird doesn't.

That seems fair enough.

The Hobart Cup will survive.

The roster has been changed.

The children will still play.

Thousands of them.

Wentworth Park 3 can belong to the plover for the weekend.

Less Advertising, More Plovers

What makes me laugh is that this one bird has probably generated more publicity for the Hobart Cup than almost anything we could have manufactured ourselves.

Months of work.

Hundreds of volunteers.

Thousands of players.

More than 1,500 games.

Fourteen venues. 45 grounds.

And the media star of the Hobart Cup is currently sitting on a nest at Wentworth Park.

You couldn't make it up.

So I think we now know the strategy.

Next year:

Less advertising. More plovers.

And if Tasmanian football ever complains again that it cannot get enough media coverage, I have the answer.

Bring a plover.