By Lance Jenkinson
Albion Football Club is concerned about what a proposed master plan for a revamped JR Parsons Reserve will mean for the future of its own space at the ground.
The Cats are one of the major tenants at the Sunshine-based ground and are currently housed in clubrooms funded and built by their members.
Cats president Maty Bettin is impressed by council proposals for the community space.
However, he feels his club is being short-changed, estimating the clubroom space it has now will be more than cut in half.
“The overall plan is brilliant and we don’t object to that,” he said.
“It’s just the space that we’ve got [allocated] and if it was like-for-like there’d be no issue.
“The fact they’re giving us way less space and we can only access the building six months of the year, it’s a bit of a sticking point for our club.” Albion’s preference is to retain the clubrooms, but would not object to new clubrooms if the current size was retained.
“We think we’ve got a perfectly good building, so why knock it down?” Bettin said.
If the clubroom space Albion has is dramatically reduced, Bettin fears it could impact on the club’s future. “Looking at the rooms, it’s probably one of the best building facilities in the WRFL,” Bettin said.
“It’s a bit of a waste of money to knock it down.
“The extra revenue you make for hiring out the rooms for functions and things like that, we rely on that to keep us going.
“If we don’t have that 12 months of the year, we might not be financially sustainable.”
