With an additional twelve teams entering this year, the junior programme has increased to set a new record of 188 teams, up three teams from the previous record set a decade earlier in 2009.
The growth has continued a trend in increasing participation numbers for Townsville Junior Touch Football, with steady increases in team numbers in every season since 2015, and an overall positive increase since 2011.
Chair of Townsville Junior Touch Football, Kerrod Hall, puts the increase down to a number of factors including the recent NRL Touch Premiership as well as the positive image and culture of the sport.
"The NRL Touch Football partnership, and recently the NRL Touch Premiership, have been big opportunities for our sport to promote itself and as an organisation we are seeing the benefits locally in terms of increased participation numbers."
"The new (NRL Touch) Premiership in particular is a great promotion of our sport and is giving us a chance to show off touch football to a much wider audience. It's also giving our current participants a really clear view into what pathways exist within touch football, showing them that they have the opportunity to play the sport at the elite level."
Hall said the sport has also benefited from the relatively low cost of participation.
"We are the cheapest organised team sport around, and the only extra thing you need to buy (other than a uniform) are a pair of boots. There's no gate fees, no weekly costs, no extra equipment, it's all included in the club registration fees at the start of the season."
Hall also praised the efforts of the competition's local clubs, saying they've been instrumental in the increase of team numbers.
"The club's themselves are the one's driving the increase in numbers. They foster such as positive culture that people want to be a part of and it's no wonder that players want to come back year after year."
"Our biggest advertiser is word-of-mouth and our club's provide such a great environment that their members happily spread the word and bring their friends along."
The growth isn't without its struggles though, as the organisation works hard to ensure there are enough coaches and match officials to support the extra teams and games, though Hall said he was encouraged by the numbers of new members putting their hand up to coach and referee.
"It's a great problem with be faced with, being able to support those extra teams with enough coaches and then making sure we have enough referees for their games."
"We've already maxed out our enrolments for our scheduled training and accreditation courses and we're trying to organise extra courses just to keep up with the demand."
"It's really pleasing to see so many people willing to give back to the sport by coaching and refereeing. They are often very thankless tasks but without them we would not have a competition to be proud of."
The current season began on August 30 and will run until December 6. Limited spaces in teams are still available and interested players are encouraged to contact their closest club as soon as possible to avoid missing out.