Harman Hogs hunt for Googong home

The club's Annual General Meeting will take place on Saturday, October 3 where a vote will be held on a change of location for the AFL Canberra Fourth Grade Premiers.

The AGM will also have a vote on a name change on the agenda from Harman to Googong. However the club's colours and nickname will remain the same.

Hogs Vice President Brad Toone is confident that the changes to the constitution will be supported.

"It is very ambitious, but it is time now to make changes. It's the biggest change that will have happened in 40 years," he said.

"Obviously we need a quorum at the AGM ... but I think I'm pretty across where most people are at... I haven't had any feedback to say that it's not a good thing."

Toone said the problem was purely logistical due to the inability of players to access the Naval base's facilities.

"Due to security reasons, more so for opposing teams, we haven't been able to play there. We did have the option to train, but it meant everyone had to get security passes," he said.

"Harman wasn't going to be a sustainable option moving forward."

The Hogs spent this season playing most of their games in the ACT, and training at the Queanbeyan Town Park.

Toone emphasised the club's great relationship with the Harman base and defence departments, saying they were a proud tradition of the Hogs that would stand the test of time.

The location change for the club, to celebrate its 40th anniversary next year, has been in the works for some time.

There had been talk of the changes occurring in time for the 2015 season, but the facilities at Googong were not prepared in time for the Hogs most recent campaign.

"We've been in discussions with Googong for the last two to three years, and the plan has always been to become a Googong team," Toone said.

With almost 80 per cent of the squad made up of Queanbeyan residents, many of them ex-Queanbeyan Tigers players, Toone said the new development at Googong offered the ideal spot for a rejuvenated Hogs club to play and train, as well as increase their public profile.

"It'll be good to have a steady home base," he said. "The facilities out there are fantastic, all brand new."

"We see this as a great opportunity for us to grow and develop and be a bigger part of the Queanbeyan community," he said.

"It will be good to establish a bigger presence in Queanbeyan."

The Queanbeyan community is already home to the Tigers Australian Rules team, who also claimed a premiership two weeks ago.

But Toone said the Hogs would be working in tandem with the ex-NEAFL outfit rather than in competition with them.

"Everything we do is in partnership with them, because we are affiliated with them," he said.

"Hopefully we can continue to build the relationship with the Tigers, to a point where we'll have teams in third and fourth grade, they'll have teams in first and second grade, and there might be some interflow of players between the four grades."

With the first grade club alongside them, Toone said the potential to tap into a brand new community would help to build the camaraderie of the Hogs, and greatly benefit the sport of Aussie Rules.

As of yet, there are no other football codes with clubs based in the Googong area.

"It'll be interesting to see what sort of interest we get," Toone said.