AIS, Titans: Elite bodies in the race to claim Gold Coast hinterland elite sports centre

One of Australia’s most distinguished sporting bodies is in the race to occupy a new elite sports precinct coming soon to the Gold Coast hinterland. Discover the clubs in the hunt.

One of Australia’s most distinguished sporting bodies is in the race to occupy a new elite sports precinct coming soon to the Gold Coast hinterland.

The Bulletin revealed on Thursday preliminary plans for a $20 million upgrade of Firth Park at Mudgeeraba, which would include a netball court expansion, two new AFL fields, and a rugby field.

The upgrade will also include a High Performance Training Centre, which has already sparked the interest of the Australian Institute of Sport, AFL Queensland, and the Gold Coast Titans.

“For some time, the Australian Institute of Sport has been interested in planning for the future and seeing what the Institute of Sport looks like in Australia (in the future),” Councillor Glenn Tozer said.

New early designs for a major sporting precinct at Firth Park, at Mudgeeraba in the Gold Coast hinterland.

“I know there’s so many major events coming to the Gold Coast now and the AIS has been in touch with the Council at different times.

“They’ve been floating around, but also AFL Queensland have expressed a very basic interest in the fields there, but I don’t know if they’d be interested in the High Performance Center.”

Cr Tozer said while each body had expressed interest, there was no preconceived plan as to who would occupy the space, and multiple bodies could potentially coexist.

“Our focus is on community sport. If there’s an experienced high performance centre operator that is also as interested in community sport as we are, then there might be something for us to talk about,” he said.

“I don’t think the community or the Council would be interested in a high performance training centre that is only dedicated to one organisation.

“I think the only way for that to work is to be effectively sports ambivalent, where elite athletes from any discipline can use the facility.”

Firth Park and the massive green space just west of the Pacific Motorway at Mudgeeraba on the Gold Coast.

With two new AFL fields planned, the upgrade may see newly merged AFL club the Mudgeeraba Robina Roos (formerly Mudgeeraba Spartans and Robina Roos) use Firth Park for additional space. with the club growing rapidly.

“It’s so exciting on so many levels, we’ve formerly been based on Somerset College, and while they’ve been amazing we’ve become too big for that space,” Roos junior club president Warren Bray said.

“We want somewhere to build a social environment and host events.”

One cotenant will likely be the Bonogin Bulls Cricket Club, who require a new home ground in order to reach the Taper Premier League’s top division.

Bongin president Jake Savage said the club were unable to play division one or two until they acquired turf wickets and changerooms.

“It is frustrating, we won the third division premiership two years ago and we applied to go into the second division but with no facilities we can’t,” Mr Savage said.

“We don’t even have a clubhouse or anything so after games we go to different venues to do awards, so it would be key to have a home ground and a clubhouse.

“Now that the concept plans have been drawn up we can apply for grants through Cricket Australia and Queensland Cricket.”

Aerial shot of the netball courts at Firth Park at Mudgeeraba on the Gold Coast.

But the plans, which will see Hinterland District Netball Associations' (HDNA) courts expand from 17 to 24, could cause disruption to the regular winter netball season.

HDNA president Megan Elliott said Saturday junior games would likely be spread across a wider part of Saturday, with games as early as 8am and as late as 5pm.

“We were presented with two options, the first was to shut down netball for the season and the second was to do a staged build,” Ms Elliott said.

“And what the members voted for was to do the upgrade into two parts. So we can still run some sort of competition.

“The executive were frightened people might go elsewhere, and sometimes it’s hard to get people back.”

Elliott said training would be most affected, and could force teams to share courts, switch training night or even search for an alternate venue entirely.

“There will be disruption to clubs and their training but I think clubs see what they’re going to get at the end, so it’s short term pain to get these amazing facilities.

“We’re really confident we can produce something with minimal disruption.”

Cr Tozer said the renovation would help HDNA win back NetFest and host other major netball events such as State Age.

“The main reason we focused on netball first is because a couple of years ago we hosted NetFest, we lost that event to Sunshine Coast because they had more courts, so one of the things we’re hoping to do by establishing 24 fully lit courts is to attract those major netball events for adults and juniors.

Mudgeeraba Redbacks president Alec Betham.

Mudgeeraba Redbacks president Alec Betham said he believed the plans would benefit not only the existing sports clubs, but the entire community.

“Infrastructure like this effects the club really positively,” Mr Betham said.

“Anything like that in the community, it doesn't just benefit the footy club, or netball, baseball, it benefits everybody.

“People from outside the district, from interstate or internationally, it’s a service that is being provided to people to use.”