By Jed Lanyon
Community sport finds a way
Yarra Glen Football Netball Club’s oval was heavily impacted by flooding, but thankfully the floodwaters didn’t reach the River Pigs’ clubrooms.
Club treasurer David Ball spoke to Star Mail on 15 June and provided an update about the club after the recent storms.
“I guess we’ve had the double whammy of Covid restrictions and flooding. We’re now allowed to train, but we can’t get into our ground so we’ve had to find alternate training venues.”
Some of Yarra Glen’s football teams have been training at Chirnside Park as the Panthers loaned their facilities. The River Pigs also made use of Mount Lilydale Mercy College’s oval for training.
“Chirnside Park was very quick to respond to our request on short notice and Mount Lilydale has been very good to us too.”
Mr Ball said the club managed to avoid significant water damage to their clubrooms.
“The floods actually got right up to a couple inches away from going into the club rooms. Fortunately they didn’t make it to the rooms, so internally we weren’t flood damaged, there was just a little bit of damage from water coming through the ceiling.
“The main problem we had was that we were planning for a big weekend prior to the lockdown. We had a freezer and fridge full of food and now we’ve lost that when the power went off.”
Mr Ball said the cost of food lost was approximately $700.
Speaking prior to the club’s return to play, he said they were scheduled for a home game for the weekend of 19-20 June.
“We were scheduled to play at home but have arranged to transfer the game to Healesville if we need to… It’ll be nice to get back into the rooms and playing sports again.”
Nearby at Yarra Glen Racecourse, Yarra Valley Racing chief executive Brett Shambrook said that apart from receiving a lot of water, the track and facilities were mostly unscathed.
“We had a little bit of flooding on the Thursday (10 June) over the track and the bottom car park was backed up near the footy ground. It comes in and then it goes and we do a clean up.
Mr Shambrook shared that a tree fell on one of the maintenance sheds at the racecourse.
“There’s a bit of damage there, but it’s not the end of the world compared to a lot of other places,” he said.
“The hardest thing for all of us over the four or five day period was having no power and communications.”
