Election bonanza: Gold Coast baseball clubs set for upgrades across the board
GOLD Coast baseball clubs are set for infrastructure upgrades across the board in a move officials hope will alleviate capacity issues and improve the quality of performances. Could the State Election be the thing to finally provide the clubs the funding they need? Find out if your club is in line for work here.
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BASEBALL
GOLD Coast baseball clubs are set for infrastructure upgardes across the board in a move officials hope will alleviate capacity issues and improve the quality of performances.
The installation of lights and undercover batting cages, as well as the contruction of a new field at one club and the upgrade of a club house at another.
Gold Coast Baseball has submitted a facility plan for the city’s clubs, with Coomera, Runaway Bay, Surfers Paradise, Robina and Nerang all need new undercover batting cages, expected to cost around $50,000 each.
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The Coomera Cubs have just finished developing a new club house, worth around $500,000, that replaced the small tin shed it previously used.
The new facility boats change rooms, a club room, canteen and a scorers area.
Coomera president and Gold Coast Baseball vice-president Nick Day said the installation of lights, worth approximately $450,000 was the club’s next major priority.
“Clubs get to a certain size and there is a lack of land on the Gold Coast,” Day said.
“Footy clubs couldn’t operate without lights. We run all year round, playing in winter and summer.
“In winter we can barely train and in summer we have two hours, maximum, to get all our junior teams through which means we have to train five days a week.
“We are in the state league so we play all day Sunday, plus the juniors play all day Saturday. “It’s a seven day a week operation.
“Twin Cities and Mudgeeraba both have lights so if Coomera got them then we could have a southern, central and northern club with lights.
“The LED lights used also don’t spill over the boundary so it wouldn't affect any neighbouring houses.”
Mudgeeraba could be in for a huge boost with plans in place to build a second diamond at its Firth Park complex while Twin Cities require new fencing around its diamond, something expected to cost around $50,000.
CRICKET
A new five-oval home of cricket on the Gold Coast and a multimillion-dollar upgrade at one club headline a list of projects in the pipeline for the sport in the city.
Cricket Gold Coast officials believe Firth Park, in Mudgeeraba, will be revamped to include five cricket ovals in a development that will allow the organisation to shift from Cheltenham Park, a facility that has one oval, in Robina.
It is understood the move will take the pressure off a booming junior program that includes 44 under-10 teams all playing under lights on a Friday.
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Such is the explosion in numbers, Cricket Gold Coast is planning to shift the under-11s to Sunday fixtures in 2021.
It will also allow Cricket Gold Coast to host junior representative carnivals, with the governing body currently forced to use The Southport School’s grounds as it is the only venue with the grounds needed.
“Cricket on the Gold Coast needs more ovals back-to-back,” Cricket Gold Coast co-ordinator Barry Van Peppen said.
“At the Sunshine Coast they have grounds where the clubhouse is in the middle and there are five ovals around it. We need that type of facility and we can fill it.
“Local clubs also need a facility that can cantor for three really good first grade games.
“At the moment there are five grounds out of action until the first week of November because of COVID. Council can’t keep up with the renovations to the grounds because of the footy season.”
Southport Labrador Cricket Club has been promised $65,000 in funding from Bonney MP Sam O’Connor should the Liberals get voted into power in Queensland, with the money to go towards upgrading the lights at the club.
Van Peppen said getting light facilities at numerous other grounds, getting more ovals and upgrading the clubhouses from “the 1980s” were among the biggest requirements for Gold Coast clubs.
The lights will allow more clubs to host junior cricket at night.
One club that has grand plans is Mudgeeraba Nerang & Districts’ Cricket Club who have been promised $250,000 by the Liberals as well.
The funds will go towards getting development approvals for a fourth oval and a new club house, with the cost of completing the mastplan extended to go into the millions.
The club currently has a two level club house, with change rooms on the bottom level, but Gold Coast City Council have informed Mudgeeraba Nerang & Districts’ the top storey is past it’s used by date.
It will likely be replaced with a grandstand while a new club house will be built between field one and two, currently being upgraded with a pickett fence.
GRIDIRON
GOLD Coast Stingrays president Craig James says a battle to secure a lease for the club and funding for upgrades to its facilities has left a “hole in his existence.”
The Stingrays are a powerhouse of gridiron in Queensland, winning an incredible 11 Sunbowls between 2006 and 2017.
But there is technically no paperwork detailing their exact home on the Gold Coast, despite being based out of Glennon Park, Nerang, for years with Gold Coast City Council approval.
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“We don’t even have a lease for the building where we house our equipment,” James said.
“It was a shack that was not being used. We started with the process of getting the lease but Council were really good with letting us be there.
“We appreciated that but I went to Council in 2015 to get a lease. They did a feasibility study and I jumped through all the hoops they asked of us but at the end of it all they have come back and said they can’t find the lease and the person looking after it has moved on.”
The lack of documentation hasn’t stopped them from getting $35,000 in funding promises from Council but the growing club is in dire need of more to get their dream club house upgrades and not having a lease could hinder any attempt they make at garnering more from the likes of the Queensland Government.
“I have been trying to get the lease forever,” James said.
“We are all volunteers and once the season starts we don’t have time to be chasing it up again. I just want to get it done, it’s leaving a hole in my existence.”
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The Stingrays currently have a small brick club house overflowing with equipment.
The $35,000 in funding from Council is set to go towards extending the building but to get the dream upgrade the sports club needs, which is two times the size of the current one, they need around $80,000.
The club’s electricity used to come through the All Sports and Community Club at the same location but since it shut down the Stingrays have been left without power.
It has left them paying $200 a month to hire a generator.
“Getting the funding would really lift the spirits of everyone at the club,” James said.
“It would make things easier. It would make it a more pleasurable experience because we wouldn’t be walking around such a small space. It’s frustrating because everything is piled on top of each other.
RUGBY LEAGUE
A NEW powerhouse of rugby league could be taking shape on the Gold Coast with one club set to undergo a revamp that will make it a mecca for the sport in the northern end of the city.
The Coomera Cutters will boast an unrivalled four full sized rugby league fields once a planned development occurs.
Helensvale have the most fields with three full-sized pitches and a modified surface but not other club has four fit to host seniors.
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It is a major win for rugby league in the region where population is booming and multiple sports are attempting to get a foothold.
Coomera currently have two full-sized fields and two modified ones.
The development is part of multiple revamps of facitlies currently planned by clubs while others are calling on the Queensland Government to invest money into ensuring grassroots league continues to thrive.
Jimboomba has been allocated $2.5 million for an upgrade of the fields, club house, dressing sheds and more fields, Ormeau have just completed work on the club house and dressing sheds, Robina have secured funding for dressing shed upgrades worth around $500,000 while Nerang are also in need of the same.
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Currumbin Rugby League Club are in dire need of a funding injection of around $1 million to move its dressing sheds out of the club house so they can extend the latter.
Rugby League Gold Coast chairman Peter Daley said the sport was well placed going forward, with the current facilities up to, if not better, than the ones from their Brisbane counterparts.
“Over the last five years clubs have been very active in applying for these grants,” Daley.
“If you have good facilities then people are going to come.
“We are less than half the size of Brisbane but we would be on par, if not then just in front when it comes to facilities.”
AUSTRALIAN RULES
AN infrastructure development worth nearly $1 million could transfer a Gold Coast Australian rules club from the forgotten border battlers to state league powerhouse.
Coolangatta Tweed are at the forefront of a host of projects AFL Queensland has prioritised for Gold Coast, with additional funding required to complete the plans on the back of a financial investment from the State Government and Gold Coast City Council.
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New female-friendly change-room facilities at Southport, Labrador and Burleigh all also among the AFL’s plans along with oval developments at Coomera, Firth Park in Mudgeeraba, Carrara and in Robina’s Greenheart project.
The club is set to land new change rooms and toilets from around $850,000 in funding, the field is being revamped, the canteen is getting a $20,000 re-fit and Coolangatta Tweed officials have put plans together to take over the sports club at the precinct that could arm the junior and senior clubs with the financial backing to thrive.
“It’s so great for the club and it’s been a long time coming,” Coolangatta Tweed vice-president John Lavender said.
The development application for the change-rooms was submitted on September 26 and the club believes approval, and the subsequent building application, are only weeks away.
The club is also hopeful of being the new tenants of the sports club located at the precinct.
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For years the football club and sports club have been divided, limiting any funding that could be generated and put towards the football entity run by volunteers.
But with the tenants of the sports club recently failing an audit, Coolangatta Tweed have plans to apply for the lease as a joint venture with an undisclosed party who is understood to be prepared to invest $1 million to revamp the sports club.
“We are doing a strategic plan for the sports club at the moment,” Lavender said.
“We want it to become a high performance centre for our footy players, with women at the highest level. Our men are in Division 2 but we have aspirations to get into the QAFL in the next three to five years.”
The move to the QAFL would provide players in Queensland’s most southern club the chance to be part of a system where they can play from their juniors to state league football in both male and female.
The Carrara Saints have had a promise from LNP Mudgeeraba MP Ros Bates of $250,000 in funding they hope will enable them to establish a third oval to go alongside the two full-sized fields and open the door for a development application of a sports club at the venue.
Labrador Tigers have been provided a $500,000 pledge from Bonney MP Sam O’Connor that will go towards new change rooms, including new female facilities, activity space and memorabilia room.
PRIORITY PROJECTS:
- Deliver upgrades to Metricon Stadium precinct including community field lighting (training),
AFLW grandstand/match facilities/broadcast lighting on main precinct training oval (new
Tier 2 venue) and a bus Interchange/pedestrian Bridge across Nerang-Broadbeach Road.
- Deliver new female-friendly change facilities at Coolangatta, Southport, Labrador and
Burleigh
- Improve overall network capacity through new oval developments at Coomera, Firth Park,
Carrara and Robina’s Greenheart project
- Create usable open space for training and competition through access to school ovals and
the installation of goalposts in public reserves
- Work with Logan City Council to plan for facility requirements at Yarrabilba and Flagstone
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