Bathurst District Football: Former president Andrew Speed honoured with life membership

Speed was originally involved with Macquarie United Football Club for a number of years, before joining the BDF committee in 2014 as the coaching coordinator and then serving as president from 2016 to 2020.

He would eventually step down from his most recent position as president at BDF's annual general meeting on Tuesday, January 19.

BDF secretary and treasurer Grant Foster said Speed has played a major role in the sport's community over the years.

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"Andrew's work with BDF was invaluable, his cool head and calmness, his thought process, and extreme hard-work ethic cannot be replaced," he said.

"Thankfully he has committed to assist where he can in the early transitional stages for the new committee and will fill a specially created position within the BDF as Bathurst Regional Council liaison."

Speed took on his first BDF role as coaching coordinator to help develop the district's representative setup, which was non-existent at the time.

"By the end of his tenure, BDF had a full complement of 10 representative teams, all of which were receiving professional training and development and most were performing admirably," Foster explained

"Most importantly the avenue for enjoyment, development and improvement had been forever created."

Speed would take up the position of president in 2016, after the passing of then president Kelvin Moore.

On taking up his new role, Speed was keen to further develop the quality and standard of the sport, as well as helping repair the rifts that had developed between the BDF, the clubs and referees' association over the years.

BDF had also been in long-term discussion with Bathurst Regional Council over the redevelopment of the Proctor Park Complex, something that Speed made a priority.

"He knew what was needed for the better of the game, and worked tirelessly to make it happen," Foster said.

"His knowledge and relationship with council and contractors facilitated the development much quicker. The current design and setup of Proctor Park sees it as the only premier football complex in Western NSW, which was only made possible because of his hard work.

"Under his stewardship the finances of the association has strengthened, and its reputation for holding premier events and carnivals has grown and the Bathurst Cup and Proctor Park Challenge have doubled in size under his reign.

"At a local level his vision and direction with regards to our competitions has seen the introduction of competition naming-right sponsors, a higher concentration of teams and players playing at higher levels and a general growth in team numbers and players.

"Women's football in particular under the Speed administration continues to develop and grow, now boasting three strong grades of around 30 teams."