The Liberal candidates for Shepparton and Euroa have called for action to upgrade the facilities at Murchison-Toolamba Football Netball Club.
Shepparton candidate Cheryl Hammer and Euroa counterpart Brad Hearn have partnered together to help improve the outdated and run-down clubrooms that have not had significant investment for 40 years.
The clubrooms, which are home to the Kyabram District League member club and Murchison Cricket Club, are in urgent need of redevelopment.
From water and insect damage, to sub-par toilet, shower and kitchen conditions that teleport you back four decades, calls are mounting for upgrades at the community facility.
With the township of Murchison based in the Euroa electorate and nearby neighbour Toolamba in Shepparton, it proved a no-brainer for the two Liberal candidates to unite.
Hammer said she was taken aback by the conditions that players and volunteers deal with week-in and week-out.
“I was shocked,” Hammer said.
“I've been out here as a guest, I've been out here as a footy mum, I understand how important the facilities are to clubs ... I actually was shocked once I could (see) what the players in the club, men and women, have to endure to get changed, all those sort of things.
“So I'm really motivated to help this club ... it's getting urgent, the building’s 80 years old and it’s been 40 years since we've had any investment.”
Hearn said the facilities at Murchison-Toolamba had not changed since he first saw them more than two decades earlier.
“I haven't been to this club for a number of years, since I was a young kid, and I have come back seeing that nothing has changed,” Hearn said.
“There hasn't been the investment that this club desperately needs. We’re fighting to make sure that our communities are heard, listened to and respected, and that starts with investment and looking after our community health.
“That’s the best thing about this plan. It’s not a plan for just the football netball club, it's a plan for the whole community in both seats and that’s why both of us are here advocating for them.”
The facilities at Murchison Recreation Reserve are from a lifetime ago.
One glaring issue is the toilet amenities at the clubrooms, with only three cubicles on offer, the club must hire out portable toilets for each home match.
The club has been hard at work for years to get significant funding, however, things have ramped up since 2015.
Plans have been drawn up for a community hub to be built, but the costs for these redevelopments are upwards of $4 million.
Murchison-Toolamba president Craig Thompson described the facilities as “embarrassing” and he welcomed the partnership of the two Liberal candidates.
“Cheryl has been fantastic. She's come back twice now and she understands that we're not in the Shepparton electorate, but she's got Brad on board from Euroa,” he said.
“Hopefully they can work together. If they do get in to get something going, but even if they don't get in, let’s raise the profile of it and get people talking about it.”
And talking they are.
Last month, Member for Northern Victoria Tania Maxwell asked the Community Sport Minister if the government would provide $4.1 million to improve facilities at the Murchison and Toolamba community hub and recreation reserve.
With Murchison Recreation Reserve located on Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning land, efforts to get substantial funding from state governments have been to no avail.
This year Greater Shepparton City Council included in its 2022-23 budget that it would fund $80,000 towards a detailed design of the Murchison Recreation Reserve pavilion.
However, there is no budget allocation for the construction of the project in future years.
The next step is for Murchison-Toolamba to begin fundraising, with a target of $300,000.
This target would be achieved through a buy-a-brick initiative, a community event and leftover recreation reserve funds.
Thompson thanked the work done by Greater Shepparton City Council in funding its detailed designs.
“I’ve been talking to Julianne (Earles) at council and she has been fantastic,” he said.
“We pushed council and then council got on board and funded our preliminary designs, then they got the conversation going, we put them up and people can start seeing what our designs look like and sharing them on our socials.
“And then now council put another $80,000 towards getting detailed designs done, which should take us to shovel ready, which means it’s ready to be funded and it’s ready to be built.”
The Grasshoppers are one of only two clubs in the KDL that fields sides in each football and netball grade, but Thompson said a new community hub would benefit more than just one user group.
He said a community hub would be a venue that could host weddings, funerals, family gatherings, community gatherings, meetings and sporting events.
“As you said before it’s a really nice venue, but it just lets itself down with the facilities on the outside of it. We want to give our local people something to be proud of,” the club president said.
“With new facilities here there’ll be other things that will open up like, you know, markets and camping, all those other community things we can do beyond the footy club.
“This is so much beyond the footy club ... the footy club actually seems a bit insignificant when you think about it. At the end of the day, that’s what we're trying to do, make it for the community.”
Hammer said an elected Liberal government would help deliver the upgrades to Murchison-Toolamba.
“I love the idea that it will be a community hub, because I think footy and netball clubs provide that for these sort of rural regional communities,” she said.
“It wasn't hard for me to decide that I was going to take this on as a cause. We have to get elected and not just get elected, we have to be in government to see it through.
“In saying that, with two fairly strong local members, you know, a part of that would be to have a really strong opposition, and potentially maybe cause a bit of noise.”