Home-ground advantage

By Jarrod Potter
The Berwick Miners and Endeavour Hills Cricket Club will benefit from a $400,000 upgrade to the change rooms at Sydney Pargeter Reserve.
The upgrade, funded by the Casey Council, will create greater space within the change rooms, a moveable partition to divide the main area, better storage, a new kitchen and better social facilities for clubs at the venue.
“The council came to us earlier this year and it’s been ongoing through all the user groups and the underpinning of the rooms, with the moving of the ground because it’s an old tip,” Berwick Miners president Darren Shaw said.
“It’s been an ongoing venture through the cricket club, us and other users here which has bore fruit.”
“There will be bigger rooms for us for gridiron, having up to 50 players in one room so that’s the biggest bonus for us. Although there are a lot of minor things, there are a lot of good things, bugbears for supporters and members of all the other user groups that will be rectified.”
Endeavour Hills Cricket Club president Darren Goodson said the upgrades will be the first money spent on the change rooms in nearly three decades of operation. “It’s a bit of a facelift, they’ve come back with temporary plans, and whether they allocate us enough, Goodson said. “It’s been about 30 years since they were built and nothing has been done to the rooms ever since, so anything will be of benefit.”
The works on the change rooms will coincide with improvements to Rawling Field, the Miners’ new ground at the venue, with light towers due by the new year, a new canteen/scoreboard and fencing to enclose the field. “Rawling Field was solely chased by the Miners committee over periods three or four years, and we have to thank Shar Balmes for that,” Shaw said. “She really got behind when we spoke to her a number of years ago.”
The upgrades will give the Berwick Miners the best gridiron facilities in the country and should help attract the VicBowl, Gridiron Victoria’s grand final, back to Endeavour Hills.
“They will be the best facilities in Victoria and the only club in Victoria and the country to have two dedicated gridiron fields,” Shaw said.“We’ll be top of the tree in regard to off-field facilities and administration with the money we’ve raised in the last few years. With our facilities and other players around the league, hopefully we’ll get some players cross over to us with some experience to help our young guys and I think the facilities will play a big part in that.”