After 142 years, Murchison-Toolamba Football Netball Club is exploring leaving Murchison after Greater Shepparton City Council refused to upgrade the run-down facilities at Murchison Recreation Reserve.
The club has tried to explore options to upgrade the five-decade-old changerooms and 40-year-old clubrooms, but has been stonewalled by council’s unwillingness to invest in Murchison Recreation Reserve, which is on land owned by the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action.
Council’s preference is to provide funding to projects on land owned by council.
WATCH: Murchison-Toolamba president Craig Thompson takes The News on a tour of the club’s facilities
President Craig Thompson’s proposal would relocate the 142-year-old club 15 minutes up the road to Toolamba Recreation Reserve, located next to the primary school.
He presented the proposal to the club and the public on Friday, March 24, and will discuss with it council next week.
Toolamba Recreation Reserve — also known as Gabriel Southon Reserve — has the potential to be a sporting hub, Thompson said, with Toolamba Tennis Club seeking funding for four multi-purpose tennis and netball courts, while he said the cricket club’s current recess was “due to lack of suitable facilities, with only a shipping container and a shed to operate from”.
The reserve has a community centre with a 100-person capacity and amenities, as well as a car park.
New clubrooms and facilities would have to be built at the new site for the club to decide to move.
Thompson said the club was exploring the option “to ensure the club can have greater support from local government ... to ensure we are able to continue to thrive”.
He said the club’s current facilities were “unsafe” and “no longer fit for purpose”.
“This exploration comes on the back of volunteer fatigue and lack of confidence that any significant change to facilities will occur at Murchison in the foreseeable future, and (we) refuse to persist in facilities that are deteriorating before our eyes,” he said.
“The decision to develop the Gabriel Southon Reserve would assist the club and other organisations to remain viable and reach a wider audience than we would typically.”
Thompson said the proposed move would bring the club to within 15km of major growth corridors such as Kialla North, West and Central, and Seven Creeks, none of which are currently serviced by their own football or netball club, while the Toolamba site is not a flood risk, unlike facilities at Murchison, which lie on the Goulburn River.
Thompson’s proposal points out that 70 per cent of the club’s members and players would have reduced travel time if the club moved to Toolamba, while it would also make the club a more attractive option to people living in Mooroopna and Kialla, and improve the drive for players coming from Melbourne.
Toolamba merged with Murchison in 1952 when the club became the Grasshoppers’ reserves side, but the club changed from Murchison-Toolamba back to Murchison in the 1960s.
Toolamba was reinstated in the club’s name in 2016.
“If a plan can be struck to develop a new home for the club in a drastically improved Greater Shepparton City Council-owned multi-sport reserve, I feel that it must be explored so that we can continue to engage our community,” Thompson said.
“Emotionally, this is a challenging proposal to make due to physical movement away from Murchison.
“Sadly, the case for staying in Murchison with facilities that show no signs of being remedied is one of emotion rather than logic.”