This weekend is Community Football Weekend, which is being held in conjunction with the celebration of 150 years of Aussie Rules Football across the country.

This weekend and others like it are so important to organisations such as the AFL and SANFL, who find most of their players among die-hard regional and rural footy clubs around the nation.

With regional and rural communities currently doing it tough thanks to drought and rising interest rates, footy clubs are also suffering from lack of volunteers and unavailability of players, with many youngsters heading off to find employment in metropolitan areas or within mining boom areas.

Having local elite players head back to their grassroots clubs for the weekend and play among them is an inspiration for those who have stayed committed to the game or who are looking for a career in the sport.

It is also a nice way for these elite players to give something back to the clubs which spent time and money grooming them, usually from the tender age of eight or nine.

For many country communities their footy club is the centre of their world, it is somewhere for families to go, for friends to meet and for events to find sponsorship.

In some towns the footy clubrooms host every major event, dinner, school formal and wedding that happens in the district.

For many Australians football will forever be “more than just a game”, it is a culture which has been bred into the young generation coming through the ranks today.

This culture is something to be cherished and nurtured and what better way to do this than to foster enthusiasm through the sports elite players.

At least one of Whyalla’s elite players, Robbie Shirley, is returning to play in Whyalla this weekend.

He will don the guernsey for his old team North Whyalla Football Club and take to the field with some of his old team mates.

It is an opportunity for local youngsters to have a chat with him and discover the possibilities that a sporting career can offer.

It is also a chance for local football fans to get together, reminisce about past seasons, the glories and the defeats and the players that have come and gone.

The weekend will give a breath of fresh air back to some of the country’s clubs which have fallen on hard times, and may be finding it difficult to dredge up the will to “kick a goal” within their community.

Get out there this weekend and support your local football teams - even if you’re not a regular at these sporting fixtures, why not go out and enjoy this one weekend of Community Football.