Ballarat's 40 under 40: Will Cousens - The Courier - January 23, 2024

Meet Victoria Park Football Club president Will Cousens in The Courier's 40 under 40 series. Video by Lachlan Bence and Adam Spencer.

Transcript

00:00 [Music]

00:09 Yeah, so I grew up in Ballarat.

00:11 A lot of my friends are here.

00:13 It is a real sense of community and home.

00:16 People are friendly, they've got time, they're not in a hurry.

00:21 It's not sort of like down in Melbourne where it's,

00:23 they haven't got time for those sort of things.

00:25 [Music]

00:33 I like the ability that the city has held of late to,

00:38 you know, draw in, whether it's like art.

00:43 So if you look at a couple of years ago,

00:45 they had the Linda McCartney photo exhibition

00:47 coming to the art gallery.

00:48 I think those things are great, you know.

00:50 The ability to, you know, over the years,

00:52 they've had the Matildas prior to the Olympics come

00:55 and use their training base and have the A-League here.

00:57 They've had, you know, AFL footy here, AFLW footy here,

00:59 all those things.

01:00 I think they're really good, you know, culturally,

01:02 as an art sport, all those things.

01:04 [Music]

01:10 I hope it keeps encouraging its diversity and equality

01:14 across, you know, all degrees.

01:18 I hope it keeps continuing to be, you know,

01:21 striving to be better, improve, you know,

01:25 whether that's logistically or infrastructure-wise, sorry.

01:31 I say that whilst also paying homage to its, you know,

01:36 traditional, let's say, architecture,

01:41 all that kind of gear, you know.

01:42 We see a lot of heavy developments and everything

01:44 going on, which is great, but also, you know,

01:46 we need to, you know, continue to upkeep and restore

01:48 all those sort of things, so it doesn't lose its charm.

01:52 [Music]