There’s been some chatter online about South’s home ground arrangements, and following our earlier article on the issues we thought we’d spend a little more time to get some numbers behind the issue.

We’ve scanned the FV fixture list to understand the home grounds South Melbourne’s teams will play out this year and have been surprised with the variety of grounds used throughout the year – note this doesn’t capture training venues which we hope would largely comprise Albert Park. Although it is worth noting that the club uses the Tooronga Sports Complex in Glen Iris (St Kevin’s sports grounds) for miniroos training later in the year.

It looks like the club uses 7 home venues throughout the year, the most egregious of which being the Home of the Matildas (14 games) and Darebin International Sports Complex (5 games).

The club has leant on Greek Community Clubs to utilise The Grange Reserve for 21 games (home of Kingston City FC) and Warner Reserve (home of South Springvale) for 23 games.

Club controlled venues make up about half of the total home games namely Lakeside Stadium (30 games), Albert Park Field 18 (4 games) and Princes Park in Caufield (28 games).

Again note, this doesn’t factor training venues, miniroos games, nor the unique staging of the NPL Boys season which is split into two halves – meaning about 20 home games are yet to be fixtured.

From a product perspective this is a bit of a mess. It means parents with multiple kids in the program need to drive across Melbourne, and aren’t even able to establish a routine, noting that all teams (except the Senior Men) will play out of at least two ‘home venues’.

This also creates challenges building a club culture – gone is canteen revenue, inter-team collaboration and a constantly buzzing central ‘hub’ that clubs benefit from when based out of a single venue. It also puts pressure on the programs themselves as should the club fail to provide excellent coaching and results, parents will quickly find more appropriate clubs to take their kids too.

The club actually has access to (minimum) 5 fields in Albert Park listed online, these Lakeside Stadium, Field 18, Filed 19, Field 7/8, and Field 13. On paper this is exactly what the club needs, however the club loses access to these grounds for a significant chunk of the year due to the Grand Prix.

Now for the positives and opportunities… firstly this is obviously a mammoth task, party out of our control so the club should be congratulated for being able to manage this logistical nightmare each year. The opportunity for the club as well is the need for more club events – presentation nights, use of the social club, activations at Senior games – to unite the many junior teams.

In terms of problem solving though, maybe we are missing something here but this in totality is not an optimal situation for the club, so at the very least –  at the next AGM we would appreciate if the board could explain the long term plan for our junior facilities.

Ideally:

• The U23s and Seniors should play double headers at Lakeside
• The U20s and Seniors should play double headers at Lakeside
• Albert Park Field 18 and Field 19 should host all the junior boys games
• Field 13 should host all the junior girls games
• Princess Park should host all Miniroos games and provide the additional coverage during the Grand Prix period

Obviously this may not be possible in the short term, but it should at least be the goal. A goal such as this will provide direction for planning away from using FV or other club facilities and help guide clearly necessary new long term agreements.