Sport
26 September, 2025
Maryborough Soccer Club submit a petition to council for a permanent home
The Maryborough Soccer Club is hopeful that its decades-long quest for a permanent home will come to an end shortly, following a petition to the Central Goldfields Shire Council (CGSC).
The petition, submitted to the CGSC on Monday, August 4, and tabled to councillors at the latest council meeting Wednesday night, contains 200 signatures from residents “seeking a dedicated soccer facility” for the club.
Since the club’s recorded formation in
1983, it has constantly shifted to various locations, often operating out of multiple sites, with stints at Peel Street Oval and Frank Graham Reserve and more recently at Coronation Park and Jubilee Oval.
According to club secretary and technical director Garry George, the lack of a permanent home has created negative ramifications for the club’s stability.
“We have had a lack of facilities or a lack of space, which has meant using multiple sites and then with the change of seasons and other things like Energy Breakthrough, we have had to move equipment across town at various points in the year,” he said.
“We have just not had a stable home for any period of time and the impact of that has been a lack of identity, a lack of a base and also burnout for our volunteers.”
The Maryborough Soccer Club is currently a temporary tenant at Jubilee Oval.
Without assurances of their long-term future, George said it has prevented the club from making necessary upgrades to the facility on and off the field.
“We are tenants, we take on a temporary lease, we have no access to the clubrooms, so we can’t run our own events,” he said.
“The knock-on effect of that is a massive lack of storage and a lack of a revenue stream. There’s a real lack of opportunity there to host fundraising events.
“We recently had our junior and senior presentation night and we had to take them to an external provider, which meant the event ran at a significant cost to us.
“We play with a cricket wicket in the middle of the field, every week there is a pitch inspection and it’s always a bit of a wait and see kind of thing to get the green light to play.
“Last year we had referees refuse to come out to us because of the poor changeroom facilities for officials, for two months at the end of last season, match officials weren’t even willing to come to Maryborough to ref our games, which isn’t sustainable.”
The club has seen noticeable growth in its junior numbers recently, fielding five teams from under 8s to under 11s in the 2025 season.
George said the new wave of families passionate about the sport locally has shown significant support for the petition.
“We have got a lot of new families, in the last three years the club has really grown, so there’s a lot of people energised by soccer,” he said.
“They are going away to Ballarat every weekend and seeing other clubs’ facilities, so I think that’s opened their eyes to how we need to catch up.
“There has always been a bit of a cap for us where any player who starts to show promise, they feel they have to go elsewhere.
“Getting a ground that we can develop and make it look like a soccer club identity will allow us to retain talented players.”
A member of these new families is club president Sami McClelland, who echoed the importance of supporting this surge of numbers with a stable home.
“It would help us establish our identity and keep a home base for our players and our club,” she said.
“We all want a place for our kids to play soccer and we would prefer to keep it locally, so if we can improve the facilities, our kids are going to stay in town and that’s supporting local community sport.
“My idea of a perfect permanent home ground would be one where we all fit and where it’s ours.”
According to Wednesday’s council meeting agenda, “The CEO and general manager infrastructure and assets planning are having ongoing discussions with representatives of the soccer club in support of their request for a dedicated soccer facility in Maryborough.”
George said the discussions between the club and council have made him optimistic despite knowing its search for a permanent home is a work in progress.
“It has been really positive since the new CEO has arrived, he seems keen to get on the front foot with this,” he said.
“There are obviously a lot of options that we have to look at and I think if there were an easy solution, we would have found it over the last 30-40 years.
“There’s a lot of moving parts, but I do feel like we have got a bit of traction at the moment and we are really hoping this could finally be our time where we do get located a home.”