Strathalbyn Strikers Football Club is deeply rooted in traditional Australian rules and the netball territory of the South Australian region.
Key points:
- The club has tried unsuccessfully to secure funds for toilets and has been using gates for 10 years.
- The clubhouse is based on land owned by a trust, making it difficult to obtain government funding.
- There are fears that girls will be excluded from the game due to lack of amenities.
The club is also known as Strathalbyn Strikers Soccer Club, to avoid confusion with the local Australian club – but the similarities between the two end there.
City-wide players at Australian club Strathalbyn have multi-million dollar clubrooms and a ground capable of hosting AFL pre-season matches.
But the Strikers’ 180 junior and senior players have a tin shed – which serves as changing rooms, canteen and storage – and three gates.
There are dilapidated toilets behind some stables at the far end of the 10-hectare site they share with equestrian clubs.
But club chairman Nick Brook said it was a long and potentially dangerous walk for junior players, particularly during dark winter training sessions.
Ten years ago the committee installed the portaloos as a temporary measure in the hope of finding funds for better facilities.
The girls at Strathalbyn Strikers Soccer Club avoid portaloos as much as possible. (ABC South East: Caroline Horn)
While club volunteers ensure the gates are as clean as possible, many players, visitors and parents avoid using them.
“Girls in particular will be taken to the main street and will use public toilets,”
» said Mr. Brook.
“It’s really crippling to our growth, especially for girls and women, because they don’t have anywhere to go to the bathroom. We try to keep them as clean as possible, but at the end of the day, they’re portals.”
Mr Brook said he had spoken with the council, local Federal MP Rebekha Sharkie and the State Government to try to access funding for basic toilets.
Although they were all sympathetic, the club continually ran into a legal hurdle.
He said while there might be an option in the future to move to a proposed sports precinct, if it came to fruition it could be five or 10 years before it was established.
Private trust ownership
The club is located at the eastern end of the Strathalbyn Polo and Recreation Ground.
The land was established in 1904, when Richard Smith, an early partner in iconic South Australian department store Harris Scarfe, established a trust and donated 10 hectares of land to the community.
But because the land is owned by the trust, there are problems accessing government and council grants.
Mr Brook said although trustees were happy for the club to build toilets, the trust did not have the money to fund them.
“There would be an outcry”
Local MP Rebekha Sharkie said the lack of toilets would not be accepted at clubs in the metropolitan area.
“If this took place in Campbelltown or Brighton there would be an uproar,” she said.
Central Alliance MP Rebekha Sharkie says the toilet situation at the club is not good enough. (Facebook)
The MP said she was told girls had to change in their car and hoped the toilet issue would not deter them from playing as they approach puberty.
“We want young women to look at the World Cup and say: ‘That could be me’ and we don’t want lack of facilities to prevent that.“
Ms Sharkie raised the issue in Parliament earlier this year and said that while she understood there were often strict criteria that civil servants had to follow when assessing grants, she was confident the issue of trust ownership could be overcome if she and the club could work with relevant ministers.
She said she was contacting South Australian Sports Minister Katrine Hildyard to invite her to the club to see the facilities first-hand.
‘A long-standing joke’ with other clubs
Katie Wilson, 13, plays in the Strathalbyn U13 and U17 girls teams and travels to Adelaide every week to train with the state development team.
She wants to emulate former Strathalbyn player Gracen Bleischke, who joined the Matildas junior training squad, and go as far as she can in her chosen sport.
Katie recently wrote to mining billionaire Gina Rinehart to try to secure private funding for a toilet, but was unsuccessful.
Felicity Wilson, Nick Brook and Katie Wilson lobby governments and businesses. (ABC Sud Est SA: Caroline Horn)
Her mother Felicity Wilson, a member of the club committee, said the lack of progress on toilets was frustrating and it was particularly difficult for girls.
“We all remember what it’s like; at that age you’re so embarrassed anyway and then you have to use the gate next to the shed,” she said.
She said while many other clubs in the Adelaide Hills junior leagues were also struggling to improve their facilities, Strathalbyn portaloos had become a long-running joke with parents at other clubs.
“We just need one or two basic toilets. That’s all,”
» said Ms. Wilson.
South Australian Sports Minister Katrine Hildyard said she would put strikers in touch with the Office of Recreation, Sport and Racing for advice, and encouraged them to reapply for funding through a soon-to-be-opened Community Recreation and Sport Facilities Program.
She said her government was committed to empowering girls and women to participate in the sport they love and had recently re-established the Women in Sport Task Force to remove barriers that stand in their way.
