By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS
A TREE that has long enriched the backdrop of Dandenong’s oldest continuous sports club may have sown that club’s destruction.
Dandenong City Bowling Club, tucked in the shade of a majestic Algerian oak in Dandenong Park since 1882, faces potentially playing out its final end at its site this season, president Greg Payne said.
As the oak has flourished, spreading its root system as far as the Princes Highway 50 metres away, so the club’s greens have withered dry and become unplayable in summer, Mr Payne said.
“We think it was planted about the same time as the club started. In summer, it’s absolutely magic to look up underneath it – I can imagine monkeys playing around in the tree. It’s magnificent.
“Our forefathers wouldn’t have realised how much damage it would cause.”
Talk of relocating the club started in the 1940s but that was because its membership had outgrown the site.
This coming season, membership stands at an all-time low, possibly as few as 15. Mr Payne said it was because of the patchy greens – “the laughing stock of Bowls Victoria”.
Treasurer Leigh Makings says the club’s low numbers also reflect Dandenong’s changing demographics and interests; two of its members are in their nineties.
Their suggested rescue plan for Greater Dandenong Council to install a synthetic green was rejected.
The club has faced down threats before – floods, the widening of Princes Highway, a clubhouse fire – but without an artificial green, it can’t survive on the site beyond next year, Mr Payne said.
Greater Dandenong community services director Mark Doubleday said the council was prepared to split 50:50 the cost of the proposed green, estimated from $250,000 to “well over” $400,000.
However the club could not afford to contribute its share, he said.
The council had looked at “remedial action” to protect the greens but that could inflict harm on the tree – which is seen as a “significant asset”.
“Discussions are being held with the club about the possibility of locating with another existing club, such as Keysborough, Burden Park or the Dandenong Club,” Mr Doubleday said.
“This has involved extensive planning and ongoing consultation.”
Councillor Matthew Kirwan says the council should make a more generous offer to the club.
“I think having the bowls club and croquet club there are assets which should be supported by our council.
“Due to council inaction in supporting this club membership has dwindled, so I think we should offer them a better deal given that we are partly responsible.”
Under the council’s 2007 Dandenong Park masterplan, it is proposed to relocate the bowls club and nearby croquet club and kindergarten, making the site open space and protecting the Algerian oak.
It stated the bowls and croquet clubs were a “choke point” that narrowed views and constrained movement to the park’s southern end.
Historic club under theat. Further coverage page 5.
