After four years of advocating, planning and construction, East Geelong Netball Club’s new court is now officially open.
In a boost to local netball, Richmond Oval is now officially home to two netball courts with competition-standard lighting, giving East Geelong’s netball program the chance to flourish.
Funded through contributions of $650,000 from the City of Greater Geelong and $250,000 from the Victorian government, the brand new netball court meets Netball Victoria guidelines and effectively doubles East Geelong’s ability to train its 10 teams and host competitive matches.
Club president Dan Payne said previous to having the new court, which has been in use since February, many of East Geelong’s 100-plus players were training in the car park each week.
“They used to train on the bitumen car park, and also it wasn’t uncommon for A grade (players) to be coming in at 8.30, 9 o’clock on a Thursday night because of court availability,” Mr Payne said.
“We were at capacity, there was no way we could do anything else. But now, having the second court, we will be introducing an under 11 team next year, and AFL Barwon has asked us if they could use the court for their Tuesday night under 11 competition.
“Having an additional court in the local East Geelong catchment is hugely beneficial to the community.”
Mr Payne thanked local councillor Melissa Cadwell for advocating for the upgrades and member for Geelong Christine Couzens for helping get funding for the initial plans.
“(They were) instrumental in getting this over the line for us… those two were really critical in delivering this project,” he said.
