By JARROD POTTER
DANDENONG Stadium – the home of south east basketball and volleyball stars – was properly celebrated on Wednesday to mark its 25th anniversary.
Players, administrators and well-wishers alike united on Wednesday afternoon to commemorate a quarter-century of elite sport under the roof at Stud Road.
The City of Dandenong saw the need for the stadium – after years of basketball and netball communities playing at sporadic courts and halls across the city – and allocated the vast tracts of land on the corner of the Monash Freeway to make the players’ local sporting dreams a reality.
The venue was opened to great fanfare on 2 June 1991 as one of the premier venues in the country to make your mark in basketball.
The Dandenong Journal editorial of 6 June 1991 summed up the feeling the stadium brought to the community and the hard-work necessary by its volunteers and sporting devotees to bring it to life.
“After years of hard work, cajoling, frustration, bargaining, fundraising and goodness knows what else, the Dandenong Indoor Sports Stadiums were official opened,” it read. “The opening was a tribute to the hundreds of people who over the years have carefully nurtured the growth of the two sports (basketball and netball).”
From the greats of the Women’s National Basketball League (WNBL) and SEABL Dandenong Rangers teams, Olympians and NBA powerhouses all the way down to domestic stars – the stadium has been a proving ground for the south east’s best and brightest on court ever since.
It was renovated to add volleyball to the mix in 2008 to give the stadium a plethora of patrons all year round.
Dandenong Basketball Association CEO Graeme Allen said the stadium had been a boon to Greater Dandenong area residents and the south east as a whole as a destination venue for elite sport.
“It’s a fantastic and huge thing for Dandenong Stadium, the city of greater Dandenong and basketball and volleyball that are key tenants in this venue,” Allen said. “To have a state-of-the-art facility that we have – recognised as the best in the country – it’s great for the people of this community to have this facility in their own backyard.
“It’s great to see that it has expanded from being a community basketball centre to one of the most renowned in the country – national events in basketball and volleyball as well as international competitions are also held here.”
Such is the acclaim of the Dandenong Stadium that it regularly hosts national championships, the National Junior Classic and other high-calibre basketball events like the recently held Basketball Without Borders satellite camp.
“At the weekend, we had the NBA here and their response was that they wanted to pick it up and take it everywhere with them,” Allen said. “For them to say that is great recognition about what we do here and how lucky we are to have a facility like this in Dandenong.”
Allen wanted to acknowledge the City of Greater Dandenong for its support of the venue throughout the two and a half decades the turnstiles have been rolling over and well into the future.
“We have had the great support of the City of Greater Dandenong with the facility – without the council and their support and vision for this place we wouldn’t be where we here today,” Allen said. “There’s already works being done to facilitate a master-plan – to secure the future for the next 10-15 years – and it’s exciting that we’re looking at it.”
