Female netball players miss out due to poor quality courts in Bayside

A LACK of quality netball courts in Melbourne’s south is exposing a desperate need for urgent action to help women play sport.

Kate Moloney of the Melbourne Vixens with young netballers at the SDNA courts on on Saturday, August 1, 2015, in Hampton, Victoria, Australia. Picture: Hamish Blair

NETBALLERS are having to play shortened games, miss matches or leave the sport altogether due to too few courts.

Sandringham District Netball Association players already number over 2200, and courts for them to train and compete are just not keeping up with demand.

Association president Alison Horton said each week 190 players had to miss out by having a bye, while those who played had short matches, makeshift facilities, old equipment and cramped conditions. Of the 199 teams in the association, 19 don’t play each week because there is no space.

“The community is growing, netball is growing, but we can’t accommodate any more players,” Ms Horton said. “We are encouraging enthusiasm and skills in the girls, but we need better and more courts ... otherwise we will lose them.”

There are only seven netball courts available in all of Bayside.

“We need more purpose-built courts. We need eight outside and two inside,” Ms Horton said.

Premier-league Melbourne Vixen player Kate Moloney said she hated seeing netball-loving girls held back.

“You get so much from netball and other team sports,” Moloney said.

RELATED: Bayside Leader’s The Grass Ceiling campaign calls on better facilities for girls and women in sport

Sandringham District Netball Association president Alison Horton. Picture: Chris Eastman.

Netballers miss out

THE  Tigers Netball Club train at Black Rock Primary School, squeezed onto busted half-courts without proper netball rings.

President, Doone Ballantine, used the courts herself when she was a young girl, and said not much has changed since then.

“I was training there when I was 10 — it has been an issue for generations,” Ms Ballantine said.

But far from being resentful, the Tigers president is grateful for anything her club can get.

“The school has been fantastic over the past 40 years, doing whatever they can to help us,” she said. “We have to make do, and it’s the only space we’ve got.”

The club has seen a massive influx of players in recent seasons, going from 12 to 18 teams in the past year.

Even with the extra teams, Ms Ballantine still gets daily phone calls and emails from parents of eager players she has to knock back.

“I feel really bad that we have to turn them away, but we have no growth room,” she said.

“That’s why we’re so anxious to get a court at the new Beaumaris Sports Club. It would relieve a lot of the pressure.”

Tigers coaches Jessica Desylva and Donna Peachey see the club’s difficulties first-hand while running weekly training sessions.

“We have no other options,” Peachey said.

“We’re crammed,” Desylva agreed.

“Parents get frustrated, but as a club we’re doing the best we can.”

“We’re crammed. Parents get frustrated, but as a club we’re doing the best we can.” — Tigers coach Jessica Desylva.

Players train on crowded and dilapidated courts at Black Rock Primery School. Picture: Susan Windmiller.

The Tigers Netball Club is currently making a play for a new court at the Banksia Reserve development in Beaumaris.

They’re not asking for much — just a patch of bitumen where they can establish another much-needed training area.

“We’ll paint the lines on it ourselves,” Ms Ballantine said.

The Tigers president said Bayside sportswomen have a real advocate in mayor Felicity Frederico.

“But she can’t make up for 50 years of inaction.

“Council should be putting more pressure on.”

Ms Ballantine said organised sport provided an outlet for young girls and was a “great community building opportunity”.

In coming weeks, The Bayside Leader will expose Bayside clubs’ struggles to get better facilities for their female players. We’ll also quiz governments and elite sporting bodies about what they are doing to support and develop female sport, and lobby them for improvements.

“You cannot underestimate how important team sports are,” she said.

“I hope we can use this momentum to make some genuine change — it really is worth the effort.”

RELATED: Melbourne Vixens netball star Kate Moloney talks about importance of grassroots sport

Netball players on the SDNA courts in Hampton. Picture: Chris Eastman.

The numbers

■ Bayside has 27 sporting pavilions, 50 sports clubs, 1300 teams and 20,000 club members

■ 80 per cent of these pavilions predate 1960.

■ 96 per cent of sporting pavilions do not have appropriate change facilities for women.

■ A third of Bayside playing fields are in a poor condition and have been assessed as “unsafe at times”.

■ Sandringham and District Netball Association has eight clubs and more than 2200 registered members.

■ 190 SDNA netballers are on a forced ‘bye” each week.

■ 765 per cent: the current winning percentage of the Brighton Beach Junior FC Under 15’s.

■ 63 new women’s teams registered with AFL Victoria in 2015.

■ As little as four hours of exercise a week may reduce a teenage girl’s risk of breast cancer by up to 60 per cent.

■ Junior netball participation in Bayside has grown by 33 per cent in four years, junior basketball is up 21 per cent and junior football by 10 per cent.

■ For 15 to 17-year-olds, just 70 per cent of females play organised sport, compared to 85 per cent of males.

■ 25 per cent of Australian children are overweight or obese.

HAVE YOUR SAY: Have you got suggestions to improve the state of play for women’s sport in Bayside? Do you know an inspirational local sportswoman or team whose story should be told?

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