Club gets own court

By Monique Ebrington
POWELLTOWN Netball Club members celebrated the opening of their own netball court last Saturday, two years after the club was formed.
For the past two seasons the club used courts at the Gladysdale Primary School, Little Yarra Steiner School and Upper Yarra Secondary College.
Club member Shelley Gray said she and the girls are happy to not have to travel more than 15km away from their club, to play a home game.
“It’s really good, everybody’s really wrapt about it. To be in the same venue as the fellas and just to have workers at the club rooms, rather than having to travel up to 17km away, is great,” Ms Gray said.
“It’s such a relief, that after two years, that we’ve finally got it.”
She said that having their own court has also be a great benefit to their training sessions.
“It’s so good to be able to train on a court. We’ve been training on the oval with the boys,” she said.
“We haven’t been able to have match practice and haven’t been able to shoot goals because we’re on the footy oval.”
The girls were so anxious to use their court as they trained before the line markings were put on the court.
Powelltown Netball’s A and B Grade teams played their first of nine home ground matches on Saturday.
The B Grade team lost to Yarra Junction 45 to 20 and the A Grade team defeated Yarra Junction 58 to 31.
Yarra Ranges mayor Len Cox and Bill Heppell, Frank Moss and Jodi Chandler from the Yarra Valley Mountain District Football and Netball League helped to launch the new netball court.
Celebrations continued at the Powelltown Football and Netball Club with a 20-year premiership reunion of the Powelltown seniors, who defeated Wandin in the 1989 Grand Final, also on Saturday.
Ms Gray said the 20th anniversary went on really well with only one member of the former premiership team absent.