Hurlstone Park Wanderers and Cooks River Titans enjoyed a happy start to the week after they received news that they had been allocated a combined $2 million from the Greater Cities Sports Facility Fund to assist with their projects.
A major step in Hurlstone Park and Cooks River Titans upcoming infrastructure developments were achieved on Monday after it was confirmed that they would be receiving $1 million each to assist with their plans.
The sizable funding for the Wanderers will go towards the long-awaited redevelopment of their Ewen Park clubhouse which has been on their agenda for over a decade.
Club President, Rosalie Viney, was shocked and overjoyed by the news as she explained the importance of the funding.
“I was absolutely stunned and delighted obviously. It’s [the funding] absolutely fundamentally important. It really makes a difference to us being able to do this for a couple of reasons,” Viney said.
“One is because of the approach we took to the grant application; we get a lot of say. It gives us much more potential and scope to work with [Canterbury Bankstown] council and make a state of the art facility. It will be a real compliment to the ground and make it a really fantastic place to be.”
Viney was quick to praise the Association and Canterbury Bankstown council who have both lent a hand to the club throughout the application process.
“I have to say both CDSFA and Canterbury Bankstown council have been fantastic in this process. We really worked with council in terms of putting the application together. We were leading the application but throughout we were providing them with drafts and they were providing us with input.
A really critical factor is that they actually committed to putting some funding in and also, they committed to meeting any gap in the funding.”
Image: Proposed design for the Ewen Park amenities facility. Supplied
The new clubhouse will give Hurlstone Park the perfect opportunity to foster the right kind of environment that is conducive to community football.
“It gives us an opportunity to have a covered area with appropriate facilities that will have a seating area for people to watch matches.”
Looking ahead, Viney said: “We’re excited to get this going. It’s our centenary year in 2024 so this will mean that we will have the facility ready by then or even earlier than that but it also just gives so much more of an opportunity to make a community focus for football in the area which is really important.”
Hurlstone Park were not the only CDSFA club to be included in the NSW Government’s Greater Cities and Regional Sport Facility Fund with Cooks River Titans also receiving a major boost with the upgrade of Waterworth Park.
Image: Waterworth Park - The future home of Cooks River Titans. Supplied
Since their inception in 2014, the Titans have been pushing for a designated space to house all their teams. For the last seven years they have been playing out of Gough Whitlam Park while sharing Beaman Park with the Wanderers.
The Waterworth Park funding will mean that they could now have up to three designated football pitches which will finally tick off one of the main objectives for the club.
Titans club president, Nick Kambounias, can finally rest a bit easier knowing that his club will finally have the home they deserve.
“When we found out the news it was relief, finally! Our plans and our wishes came true. We can have a new home because at the moment we don’t have a clubhouse, our training facilities don’t have any amenities and Waterworth Park can be the solution,” Kambounias said.
“Ultimately it will become a fantastic venue in the long run for not only the club but it will add two, potentially three fields to the portfolio of fields that sit within the CDSFA so that could only be a good thing.”
Image: Cooks River Titans President, Nick Kambounias, overlooking Waterworth Park. Supplied
Kambounias also praised Canterbury Bankstown council for their assistance in getting the funding over the line.
“Ever since the merger of the councils, they have always been quite open to discussions on how we can move forward with plans to go to Waterworth Park so it was just a matter of timing and budgets,” he said.
“We worked closely with them, they put in the application for funding with a fair bit of assistance from the CDSFA.”
Cooks River have forged a cross-code relationship with touch football who have both supported each other throughout the application process.
“All along with Waterworth Park we had put in an initial proposal together with touch footy. In the last couple of years the park has been upgraded with new pitches for touch football.
“The additional funding is to expand those fields to incorporate to full sized football pitches probably three, whether there is enough funding to get that over the line, we do not know.
In the end we will work with touch footy, we are predominantly winter so we will work together with them and council so that use of the ground is fair and equitable.”
By CDSFA Communications Officer – Samuel Greco Schwartz
