SOUTH Gambier Football and Netball Club is finalising the design of new changerooms which would elevate the Blue Lake Sports Park facility to Australian Football League (AFL) standards.
The Demons are gearing up for a complete overhaul of their ageing infrastructure, which would put the club in contention to host AFL clashes similar to the pre-season games previously held at Malseed Park.
The State Government announced last month it would contribute $206,800 to the project, which will be matched by the club.
The money will be used to upgrade the current football and umpire changerooms, which will also make them female-friendly to cater for the expanding women’s competition.
A storage shed for the cricket club and an additional netball court also feature in the plans, with work expected to be completed before the start of the 2020 Western Border season.
Club president Wayne Glynn said the upgrades would be the most significant in the club’s history.
“Our vision is to continually upgrade our facilities towards SANFL and AFL standard for the benefit of our members and community,” he said.
“We did some small changes a couple of years ago, but this is probably the biggest thing we have done since the club was built.”
Mr Glynn hoped the upgrades would place the club in a position to secure an AFL game in the future.
In February 2017, West Gambier Football Club hosted a pre-season match involving Port Adelaide and Richmond and previously hosted Port Adelaide and Collingwood under similar circumstances.
“It’s no secret that we are positioning ourselves to get one of those pre-season games down the track,” Mr Glynn said.
“Our changerooms will be around 30pc bigger to meet those standards and showering facilities will be tailored to both males and females.
“The mail we are getting is they want more games in country areas, so we are setting South Gambier up to accomodate those sort of games.”
He said the work to get the project off the ground started well before his time as president.
“I have to commend the work done under previous president Leigh Winterfield’s leadership,” he said.
“A mountain of fundraising has been done to get to the point where we have the money to meet the requirements of matching the grant.”
Mr Glynn said the new facilities would service the whole community and continue to encourage partcipation in team sports.
“We have a very young demographic at our club at the moment and we want to continue to promote that youth by providing them with great facilities,” he said.
“It is great the State Government continues to support grassroots sport and as a result we are seeing money flowing to a number of clubs in the South East.”
Mr Glynn said the project was expected to start after the completion of the current football and netball season.
“We are expecting the construction drawings back in a fortnight and the building will get under way not too long after the season’s finished,” he said.
“We then hope to have everything up and running before the start of the 2020 season.”
