Noble Park Soccer Club under 18 girls players, including Diana Petrovic (front), are fed up with the club’s makeshift change rooms.By Sarah Schwager
THE Noble Park Soccer Club (NPSC) girls must continue to go home to shower after an application to upgrade the club’s change rooms was rejected for the sixth year in a row.
NPSC treasurer Boyan Mitkov said he first applied for funding from the City of Greater Dandenong to improve the facilities in 1999 and had put in 10 claims over the six years since.
The club received the latest rejection letter last week.
While the boys and men’s teams, ranging from under 11s to seniors, have their own change room with toilets and showers, the girls use a corner of the clubroom with a makeshift roller door blocking access to the main area.
As the only entrance to their makeshift area is from outside the building, the girls must go outside and use another entrance to the clubrooms in order to access the ladies toilets.
The club wants the council to upgrade nearby public toilets for use as the girls’ change room.
Greater Dandenong mayor Maria Sampey said the council had been trying to work with the club for some time, but the upgrade of the public toilets, which she said would end up costing $100,000, was too expensive.
She said the clubrooms had to be a shared facility, with another club using the rooms over the summer, in order to justify an upgrade.
“We have met with them to try to see what other teams can go there and share with them,” Cr Sampey said. “They have to understand they need to share their facilities.
“During summer they can have picnics and barbecues and can come and go as they please because noone else is there.”
But Mr Mitkov claimed the club’s quote put the cost of fixing up the public toilets at between $30,000 and $40,000.
The latest rejection letter to the club, dated 5 September, said as the soccer club did not use the reserve year round it was not considered a priority for upgrade.
“The facilities at Norman Luth Reserve are comparable with many other soccer clubs with similar member participation,” said the letter from Greater Dandenong manager property leisure and environment Lynette While. “However, given the good work of the club in developing a women’s soccer side, council is happy to work with your club to explore ways in which the club can develop and better utilise the existing facilities at Norman Luth Reserve.”
Mr Mitkov said the girls’ team was an established team, not a developing team as council stated, and had been winning competitions since it began playing four years ago.
NPSC president Slavko Sotiroski said there were enough female players to field two teams last year, but the club was unable to do this because of its poor resources.
He said the club was continually sending people away.
Under 18 player Eva Eid, 17, said even though the facilities were not great people still wanted to join the club.
“We’ve got a good field compared to other clubs,” she said. “It’s like a family here.”
Fellow under 18 player Aleksandra Pavlova, 17, said the change room was just not suitable, particularly for teenage girls.
“We have no specific area (in which) to get changed,” she said.
“Even though we are all girls there is no privacy.”
Greater Dandenong Director of engineering services Tim Tamlin said the club should be using the showers in the clubroom’s ladies toilets, but Mr Sotiroski said the showers were being used for storage as no other space existed in the clubroom.
Confusion also exists at the club as to why nearby public toilets are not converted into change rooms.
Mr Tamlin said proposed upgrades to the public toilets were too expensive, and, while he sympathised with the club, the council did not have the funds to upgrade the facility when there were other shared clubs and assets that needed improvement.
“I would support the upgrade if we had the funds to do it,” Mr Tamlin said.
Mr Sotiroski said the club could rarely use the public toilets as they were nearly always locked, and Mr Tamlin said the toilets were kept locked much of the time because of their location and for community safety issues.
Mr Mitkov said it was true there used to be many drug users hanging around, but the club had done a lot to clean up the reserve.
