Budget 2019: Manly Warringah Football Association gets $500k toward Cromer Park HQ upgrade

The home of football on the northern beaches is a step closer to a multimillion-dollar upgrade, with money allocated towards a new Cromer Park headquarters being set aside in Tuesday’s budget. SEE AN ARTIST IMPRESSION OF THE UPGRADE.

The Manly-Warringah Football Association headquarters at Cromer Park.

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THE home of football on the northern beaches is a step closer to a multimillion-dollar upgrade, with $500,000 allocated towards a new headquarters at Cromer Park set aside in Tuesday’s budget.

Mackellar MP Jason Falinski has hailed allocations in the budget, handed down on Tuesday night, as a major win for sport in the peninsula’s north.

$170,000 has been set aside for upgrades to St Matthews Farm Reserve in Wheeler Heights and $53,000 to Wakehurst Rugby Club for upgrades to their home ground.

An artist impression of a new clubhouse for Cromer Park.

But the big-ticket item is Cromer Park, which would see its tired clubhouse transformed into a modern-day establishment to cater for the growing sport.

Manly Warringah Football Association lobbied for the funds for stage one of the Cromer Park upgrade, as a way to cater to its 19,000 members.

CEO of Manly Warringah Football Association David Mason said the $500,000 would allow for the majority of the bottom floor of an about “$5 million dream” headquarters for football on the northern beaches.

“Our grand plan is to have two storeys but we fully understand we are going to have to attack this in stages,” he said.

“What the funding does is allow us to do the basic necessities to ensure it keeps up with a modern facility.”

Federal Mackellar MP Jason Falinski. Picture: Jeremy Piper

Mr Mason said football players would be extremely grateful to hear the news.

“The facility was originally built in 1983 and is in desperate need of redevelopment to ensure the 19,000 registered football players on the northern beaches have a facility to allow the administration of grassroots football to function and modernise the football and community spaces.

“Football is the biggest participation sport on the Northern Beaches, and indeed all over Australia, and it is refreshing to see the Federal Government injecting funds to allow the country’s leading community sport to keep up with the enormous growth in players that caters for men, women, boys and girls aged from 6 right through to 60.

“Cromer Park is the home of football on the Northern Beaches and we will now be able to compliment the football fields and facility with an administration and community space that will benefit all 19,000 players at the 18 clubs from Palm Beach to Mosman.

“This will allow us to improve or create administration offices, community and clubhouse facilities and physio facilities for our high-performance programs which represent Manly Warringah Football Association in boys, girls, male and female programs across Sydney and NSW,” Mr Mason said.

Mr Falinski said this is an exciting time to be involved in sport on the northern beaches.

“Cromer Park is one of our elite sporting grounds on the Beaches and the fact that they have a canteen from the 70s with numerous issues isn’t up to scratch, we started a petition to get funding for the upgrades and I’m pleased to say that it has now paid off,” he said.

“Increasing sports participation rates among kids is one of my priorities for the Beaches, providing these upgrades for our local sporting clubs will help more kids engage in sport.”