The neglect the Shepparton basketball community and the 50-year-old Shepparton Sports Stadium have endured over our city’s history is a blemish on our otherwise developed and valued sporting culture.
It’s such a glaring issue that primary school students are talking about it at recess and lunch.
Kialla West Primary School teacher Jackie Gray recently gave her Year 5 class an open writing task.
The students could write about anything they wanted and were encouraged to let their imaginations run wild.
She expected to read tales of dungeons and dragons, spaceships and aliens, beauties and beasts.
To her surprise, two of Ms Gray’s students told her they would be writing a persuasive piece about a community issue.
“They could choose to write about anything they wanted at all, which I think shows how passionate they are,” she said.
“They said they wanted to do a persuasive, which is normally a bit heavier writing than creative, but they said they wanted to write about the stadium.”
Year 5 students Adam Wayman and Harry Watson are keen basketball players.
And they are fed up with the Shepparton Sports Stadium.
Adam and Harry both chose the topic independently of each other.
“I think they both captured the community’s frustrations quite well,” Ms Gray said.
Just the week after they decided to write about the stadium, The News launched its Stand For Our Stadium campaign.
Excerpts from Harry and Adam’s persuasive pieces
Adam:
Why are people having games cancelled because of rain?
This should not be happening.
There is a roof!
Some people come from Tatura and Mooroopna to play their games just to get there and see the game is cancelled.
I see them walking out of the stadium, heads down, looking devastated.
This is not okay.
Fix the roof now!
At the grand final for the Big V division one men it was a terror for passionate fans that could not get into the stadium because it was at capacity.
This shows why we really need an upgrade.
Why should the community have to wait for a basketball stadium when the other stadiums are way more developed than Shepparton?
While the rest of the town is developing, the basketball stadium is staying old and outdated.
This is not good enough as there are people rapidly signing up for basketball and there isn’t enough basketball for all ages.
If we do get an upgrade it could really help the community.
I hope this has worked and I will see a nice stadium in the future.
Harry:
The Shepparton Sports Stadium is a place you’ve probably got a lot of letters about and I hope this one changes your mind.
So let’s go back seven years ago.
You said you were going to give the basketball stadium an upgrade.
Everybody was so excited and you even had a video of what it was going to look like.
Fast forward to now and still nothing has happened.
All of the soccer, netball, footy, athletics and hockey fields are really good, everything apart from the stadium.
Last but not least, a lot of the time when people are scoring on the laptop it freezes.
Just recently court three got a new scoreboard.
That is after we were using a portable scorer.
That would’ve been embarrassing for the junior basketball tournament.
The stadium could be not just good for the basketball community but the whole community.
I hope I have changed your mind and maybe you might change the stadium too.
A coincidence that illustrates the outcry across our community, and indeed across generations, for an improved facility.
Adam and Harry were taken aback by the inadequacy of Shepparton’s basketball facilities in comparison to the ones they had seen while travelling around the region to play basketball.
Adam said he had played in a stadium in Wodonga with more courts than Shepparton and was surprised to learn it was the border city’s second stadium.
It was embarrassing to Adam that another regional town had better facilities in its “backup” stadium.
For Harry, the broken promises of upgrades over the years have left him frustrated.
He pointed out the disparity in the other sports facilities at the Shepparton Sports Precinct, just down the road from the Shepparton Sports Stadium.
Harry couldn’t understand why soccer, football, hockey and virtually every other sport in Shepparton clearly had received so much more investment than basketball.
Throughout this campaign, you have heard coaches, presidents and parents tell you that the problems with the Shepparton Sports Stadium will be detrimental to the future of our community.
Well, now the future of our community is telling you.
The News implores you to listen.
“I hope I have changed your mind, and maybe you might change the stadium too,” Harry said, closing out his persuasive piece.
Show your support for our campaign by signing our petition at www.change.org/p/upgrade-the-shepparton-sports-stadium
Stand For Our Stadium: The story so far
Or reach out to us and have your say:
Contact details
News journalist Jay Bryce
5820 3195
@jaybrycenews on Instagram
Or The News desk at:
5831 2312