Wheelers Hill changerooms leave 50 girls to share one toilet

A FOOTY club with 50 girls has one female toilet because the changerooms are stuck in the ‘70s when the sport was only for men and boys.

Waverley Park Hawks Junior Football Club has a $300K commitment from Labor to upgrade its 40-year-old pavilion. Picture: Valeriu Campan

A FOOTBALL club whose 50 girl players are forced to queue for a single women’s toilet is busting for Monash Council to bump it up on the list of scheduled pavilion upgrades.

Waverley Park Hawks Junior Football Club secretary Lindsay Moore said girls’ football was expanding rapidly.

Mr Moore said the number of girls playing at the club had ­increased from 10 in the under-10s last year to about 50 this year in the under-11, under-13 and under-16 teams.

But there had been few modifications to the pavilion since it was built in the mid-1970s.

“It was built when sport was ­traditionally played by men or boys,” Mr Moore said.

“It’s certainly not suitable for females, and probably not suitable for a junior club full-stop.”

There is one toilet in the ­pavilion change rooms beside the urinal, but girls generally share the only women’s toilet outside with spectators and the public.

In the past five years the club had more than doubled in size to more than 400 members, meaning the pavilion also overflows during weekly match reports.

Labor has promised $300,000 to upgrade the Wheelers Hill club’s change room and facilities if it wins the state election, but the cash is contingent on the council also coughing up.

Mr Moore said he hoped Labor’s pledge would pressure the council into bringing forward a major upgrade pencilled in for 2018-19, with a price tag of about $1 million.

Monash Mayor Geoff Lake said there were “more pavilions on the list for an upgrade than there is money”, and upgrades had to be staggered to keep rates affordable.

But Cr Lake said the council generally tried to accommodate projects when there was external money available, and would ­reconsider the timing of the upgrade when looking at its 2015-16 budget.

Opposition Leader and ­Mulgrave state Labor MP Daniel Andrews said community sports clubs deserved rooms they could be proud of.

“I want to see more boys and girls in our area getting active and taking up the great game,” Mr ­Andrews said.

Liberals refused to match Labor’s commitment. Shannon Gill, a spokesman for Sport Minister Damian Drum, said the State Government was looking at a “range of community sporting facility projects” throughout ­Monash and Victoria.

“Women’s sport change facilities have been a priority of the ­Coalition Government since coming to power in 2010,” Mr Gill said.