‘This is just crap’ ... Kingborough Lions president embarrassed at treatment of injured female players
Treatment of two injured players highlight the predicament of a local soccer club as it strives to improve conditions for female players.
Football
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WARREN Iles has never felt so embarrassed.
The president of the Kingborough Lions United Football Club was left ashamed after a female opposition player was forced from the Lions’ ground, Lightwood Park, with a serious leg injury and was unable to receive treatment in the change room as men were preparing for the next game.
Instead, she was forced to the clubrooms with her mother to wait for an ambulance.
“It was just really bad, to have her in the club rooms on the floor next to the table tennis table,” Mr Iles said.
“We had a concertina door we tried to pull across and had her mum in there and it was just terrible.
“I was thinking, ‘This is just crap.’
“This is the top level of sport in Tasmania for this girl and she’s lying under our table tennis table.
“Then a second [injured] girl came in. It was bad enough squeezing one girl in then we had two girls, two mums and waiting for an ambulance.
“It just a left a real sour taste in my mouth.”
The Lions are one of the bigger clubs in Tasmania, with 573 registered players, 194 of whom are female.
They boast an all-female team in every division from under-6 to the Statewide Cup (in which Lions have qualified for tomorrow’s final), yet have no facilities for them in their outdated venue.
The club sought and was promised a $1.5 million grant from federal Labor during the recent election and fought hard for matched funding from the Liberals, only to be denied.
With the election falling the Coalition’s way, the club is back at square one with no funding to make Lightwood Park an equitable venue for both genders.
“We think we have done everything to promote female sport and female participation with our women’s programs and the coaches we’ve got, but now we are at the bit we can’t control,” Mr Iles said.
“We now need somewhere to change safely and be treated for injury safely.
“We know we have got such a big, burgeoning women’s program, but we couldn’t even put them on a treatment table because the men were in the change rooms.”
The club did not apply for the “Levelling the Playing Field” grants during the first round as it was told it was for Australian Rules and cricket venues. But it is now in the running after fellow football club Olympia received a $500,000 grant to update their change rooms.
The club has the backing of the Kingborough Council, which has allocated $500,000 to Lightwood Park, but Kingborough Mayor Dean Winter said help was needed to fund the upgrade of change rooms.
“The Lions are the ultimate family club,” Cr Winter said.
“It is not the Lions’ fault they’re not in a marginal electorate.
“The project fundamentally stacks up on the basis of need and I really hope the State Government will see merit in the project.”
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