By Callum Ludwig
Court 1 at the Yarra Centre in Yarra Junction continues to be affected by major drainage issues, with large amounts of the flooring needing to be replaced.
The drainage concern has been cropping up since earlier in the year, with June the firs time the issues started to affect the playing surface.Acting CEO of Yarra Ranges Council Hjalmar Philipp said they’re working with Belgravia Leisure to manage flooring replacements for Court 1 at the Yarra Centre.
“These works will see drainage and pump replacement works, which are crucial for the ongoing use of the facility,” he said.
“Court 2 will remain open during the work period, however we understand that this will have an impact on user groups who will have to share the space. We’ve been in conversation with user groups and Belgravia about maximising use of Court 2 during this time,”
“We expect work to be finished by the end of 2024, and will continue to work with Belgravia and user groups about possible dates when competition can return to Court 1.”
The uncertainty regarding the use of the court has had a heavy impact on the Upper Yarra Basketball Association (UYBA), who have had to relocate and reschedule numerous games in their competitions in the meantime.
Treasurer of the UYBA Catherine Aulich said it’s been a tumultuous couple of months for them but thankfully they have shifted the majority of their competitions to the stadium at Upper Yarra Secondary College, the former home of the competition.
“It’s a bit nostalgic to be back up there but at the same time, our players definitely prefer to be playing at the newer surface down at the Yarra Centre, but we’re so grateful to them for allowing us to go up there and play,” she said.
“Before these issues surfaced, we were playing up there on a Tuesday night only as a bit of an overflow for our competition, Tuesday nights are our biggest evening sessions because we run an over 25 women’s competition and we also run an open mix competition,”
“Our open mixed competition is our biggest competition across our whole juniors and seniors, we’ve got 16 teams and it’s a really fun, friendly social competition but because we’ve got 16 teams, we can’t play that competition on one court, we can’t play till midnight, so it really means we need two courts.”
Initially, when the problems first surfaced, the UYBA staggered its Tuesday night competition to be played fortnightly, with one round completed over two weeks. Due to the long-term nature of the repair works however, this approach won’t be sustainable for the summer season, which runs through to Easter.
Ms Aulich said they ‘limped’ through to the end of the final series, but are also down about $900 a week of income because they’ve got between 70 and 80 players a week who are sitting on the sidelines.
“It has highlighted how vulnerable our sports are up here in the area, because we don’t have enough court space for the multiple sports that are playing at that indoor centre and ee actually started some conversations last year at all three levels of government, we met with [Casey MP] Aaron Violi, [Eildon MP] Cindy McLeish and also Yarra Ranges Council,” she said.
“We’ve experienced some really nice growth over the last couple of years, and so we’re starting to think about where are we going to be in five years, where are we going to be in 10 years, and what facilities do we need to resource that growth,” she said.
“We’ve basically had two options there that we’re looking at; there’s the Yarra Centre and it would be great to get a couple more courts down there in the township, but also that centre up at the high school, which was probably built nearly 40 years ago, would be definitely due for possibly an upgrade or a facelift and an expansion that potentially could support the growth of sport in the Upper Yarra,”
“We had a couple of them suggesting ‘What about Healesville, what about Mount Evelyn, what about Cockatoo’ but unfortunately with many people in the Upper Yarra, they just won’t travel, they don’t want to get in the car and drive 30 minutes down to Lilydale, especially people from Warburton, East Warburton and Reefton way so it’s just not feasible for people to travel that far to play.”
As well as basketball competitions, the courts at the Yarra Centre also host netball and pickleball competitions.
One positive to come from the unfortunate situation of court access was the selflessness of the Over 25s Women’s Basketball players, who volunteered to relocate their games to the undersized stadium at St Joesph’s Primary School.
Ms Aulich said the UYBA wanted to praise them for stepping up and taking one for the team, as well as St Joseph’s for offering the stadium as well.
“St Joseph’s have got a little stadium in there that was built on probably 10 to 15 years ago, but it was very much catering for that primary school age group as unfortunately for us, they built the roof quite low and they’ve got big heaters suspended from the roof, so playing basketball and trying to shoot a big three pointer or lob the ball down the court, you’re more likely to hit the roof than you are to hit the ring,” she said,
“We deemed that not really competition grade, as nice as the facility is, we just felt that it wasn’t suitable to be playing on but within the last week, the women, the Over 25 women who play realised we were coming up with dead ends everywhere and we weren’t really getting a reasonable solution,”
“The women all came together and said they’ll go and play at the primary school if it means that 70 or 80 people a week aren’t sitting on the side and we aren’t missing out on income.”
