The Serpentine – Jarrahdale Netball Association was denied access to ACROD parking and disabled toilet facilities on their biggest day of the year.
While there has always been a bit of argy-bargy between the football and netball clubs who share the facilities at Mundijong Oval, the two have always found a way to co-exist.
However, the stoush over facilities came to a head last week after an unexpected and last-minute rescheduling of the Peel Football League Preliminary Finals to the Mundijong Oval.
In order to charge a $13 gate fee, the oval, its parking and toilets were fenced off.
The exclusion zone meant the netballers and their supporters were deprived of the shared facilities during their Grand Finals, which they’d had booked in since February.
Netball Association Life Member Bill Denholm held an emergency meeting with the Shire of Serpentine Jarrahdale last week to ensure the netballers weren’t getting completely rolled by the arrangements.
An agreement was struck to cordon off a slice of road for parking for the use of the netballers, and to reopen one of the old toilet blocks instead of the offer of port-a-loos.
“We have a large contingent of elderly association life members come to spectate at our grand finals – I wasn’t about to force them into port-a-loos,” he said.
Bill said he was also assured that the blocked off disabled toilets would be made available to them.
But when the day came, that promise was not upheld.
“I just think it’s absolutely disgusting that locals were turfed out in favour of outsiders – only one of the six teams playing in the footy finals were from the shire,” Bill said.
“And it wasn’t even the Centrals who benefited from the gate takings.”
We asked the shire why Peel Football was allowed to block off shared facilities between the netball and football clubs for Saturday’s games, how the shire ascertains who has priority over use of shared facilities when there are two competing interests, and which sporting organisation booked the use of the space first, but did not receive a response to our enquiry.
For Bill and the netball association, the construction of their promised facilities at Keirnan Park can’t come soon enough. But with so much to achieve before the shire breaks ground on Stage 1C (netball courts) of the project, it might be a fair few years until they can enjoy facilities that are fit-for-purpose.
