Kyabram sporting clubs seek better upgrades for Wilf Cox pavilion

Female members of a Victorian sporting club are fuming despite their local council planning to spend more than $3m on upgraded facilities. Here’s why.

Kyabram community members are seeking a separate facility.

Female members of a northern Victoria sports club say proposed facility upgrades fall short and want change to the “humiliating” conditions they endure.

The Wilf Cox Pavilion, home to Kyabram football netball and cricket clubs, is set to undergo $3.2m in works to replace the existing structure with new female friendly and gender-neutral change facilities, umpire changerooms, showers and toilets to be installed.

But local cricketers and netballers say it’s not enough.

It comes after Kyabram community members voiced concerns at a recent Campaspe Shire Council meeting over the plans which they claim would see the facility lose floor space, change room size, gym space and the loss of vital social spaces.

Those behind the push said Kyabram netballers, cricketers, their opponents and umpires were forced to cram into a four-stall toilet to change – or go upstairs and hide behind an office partition in the corner of the clubrooms – to strip off and change for games.

When the council decided on the multi-million dollar project, the membership protest had an impact as the vote was tied (4-4) with mayor Daniel Mackrell using his casting vote to rubber stamp the proposal.

All users of the facility at Kyabram Recreation Reserve are united in their push for any development plans to include a separate facility for female members.

Kyabram netball coach Rhianna Hilton said after waiting more than two decades for any sign of equality and inclusion at the Unwin St recreation reserve they had “all had enough”.

“We haven’t got changerooms, we’ve got a dunny, and it is humiliating and totally unacceptable in 2025 – and as unacceptable now as it was when I first came to the club as a junior in 2003,” Hilton said.

“Now Campaspe Shire says it will spend more than $3m with a rebuild/retrofit of the Cox pavilion but is planning to jam everything we need into the same footprint – it isn’t a solution, it isn’t even a compromise, it is an absolute joke and an absolute waste of time and money when we should be building a long-term community asset,” she says.

“We don’t want lip service; we don’t want councillors spouting feel-good statements from their PR playbooks – we want respect.”

Dee-Ann Dodos, who has been part of the local club community for over 20 years, said it had become an uncomfortable environment.

“Now my friends and I have daughters playing here, and some of them point blank refuse to use the ‘facilities’ available to them here because they find it so intimidating,” she said.

Campaspe Shire Council mayor Daniel Mackrel said “officers spoke with each of the club presidents the week following the meeting”.

“Officers have also spoken on the phone and met face to face with the club nominated representatives to progress the project,” he said.

“Officers have met with representatives from the user groups from 2017 – 2025 in consultation on the design for this project including the Kyabram Cricket Club, St Augustine’s Junior Football Club, Kyabram Football Netball Club, Kyabram Junior Football Netball Club.

“The recent appointment of a tenderer will allow the August 2025 commencement of works to upgrade the space for new change rooms for a female friendly environment that meets Netball Victoria and AFL Guidelines, for delivery by the August 2026 deadline, in accordance with Regional Community Sports Infrastructure Fund grant agreement.”