Sandringham soccer players plead for shut-down ground to be reopened and repaired
A Sandringham soccer club playing field is in such bad shape authorities have shut it down — but they have refused to allow desperate members to pay for repairs themselves.
Inner South
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A SUBURBAN soccer club’s home ground is in such bad shape authorities have shut it down — but they have refused to allow desperate members to pay for repairs themselves.
Sandringham Soccer Club is pleading with Bayside Council to let them repair the
Holloway Rd pitches on the Sandringham Secondary College grounds, which are full of potholes, covered in weeds and “unplayable”.
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The pitches were closed by Bayside Council in April to “give them time to recover”.
The soccer club’s president Simon Polinelli, said the club had offered to pay “tens of thousands of dollars” for repair and maintenance work, but discussions had hit a stalemate.
Mr Polinelli said games and training sessions were now about to be cancelled.
He said the club’s other grounds — Sillitoe Reserve, Destructor Reserve and Spring Street Reserve — could not accommodate 800 members from 66 teams, especially when wet weather closed other grounds.
“Games are taken off and we now have a very limited capacity to reschedule and catch up,” he said.
“We’re supposed to be a sports club and if we stop people training and stop matches, we’re not delivering much to our members.
“We have very limited and finite resources, and this is a huge resource that people just no longer have access to.”
The club pays the council usage fees, but the council says without an infrastructure or maintenance agreement, it cannot undertake necessary repairs on the state government school land.
Department of Education and Training spokesman Steve Tolley said their priority was to ensure the ground was fit for use by students.
“With the World Cup now in full swing, we understand this move may be frustrating but it’s important the ground is kept in good condition for the school’s students and community,” he said.
The council’s environment, recreation and infrastructure director Steven White said the club had been given an alternative ground to use and had not been charged for access to the school ground.
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