By Leon Georgiou
THE Mount Burr Football Club hopes to secure a grant from the State Government in order to install a new set of lights at the club’s oval, facilitating night games.
President of the Mozzies Maurie Puiatti said the club had lodged a grant application with the Office for Recreation, Sport and Racing and was expecting a response from the department around December.
“Financially we’ve got everything pretty well in place, fingers crossed we think we’re in with a good chance [of getting the grant],” he said.
If successful, the government grant would account for 50 per cent of the total project cost – which is estimated to be around $210,000.
Wattle Range Council has also given $50,000 to the club via a grant, with the remainder to be contributed by the Mount Burr Football Club.
Puiatti said replacing the lights had been something the club had been hoping to achieve for a long time.
“It’s something that has been talked about here over the years, but no one ever knuckled down and applied for a grant,” he said.
“We found the poles are in a very poor condition, so we got an engineer to give us a report on it and hopefully that helps our cause in getting them replaced.
“The lights are very very old and have been like that for a long time.
“They have been replaced over the years with some second hand lights, but the quality is very poor.”
The new lights would also be a significant upgrade for the club in terms of allowing teams to play night games, something Puiatti believes would attract more people to games and increase the club’s financial turnover.
“We’ve seen that with other clubs doing that, they seem to attract people from other clubs with the night games,” he said.
“So that’s sort of been our aim, it just adds another dimension to footy, occasional night games and stuff like that.”
Assuming the grant is successful, the Mount Burr Football Club hopes to see a night game organised for the start of the 2022 season.
