As players from Fitzroy Senior Football Club arrive at Brunswick Street Oval on a cold Saturday morning, they start their usual pre-game rituals. But before they can get warmed up, club volunteers clean up possum faeces from the back wall of the changeroom. Players avoid the area due to the stench.

This has become a weekly routine for all clubs that use the facility as the poor condition of the changerooms has made them almost unusable.

The Brunswick Oval grandstand is an iconic part of the Yarra City Council community and previously hosted VFL football matches for more than 65 years. The grandstand, has deteriorated significantly, including the changerooms underneath which are no longer up to scratch. The rooms are small, outdated and are not gender neutral.

The council has not been allowed to fully renovate the grandstand because it is heritage-listed and more than 135 years old. Despite looking old and fatigued, the grandstand remains functional. However, no improvements have been made to the clubrooms since 1988, despite promises from council.

Quinn Simmons, a former Fitzroy Junior Football Club player, says the conditions of the rooms were substandard five years ago, during his playing days. He recalls how a section of the roof in the changeroom was exposed, where the possums used to get in and wreak havoc.

“I remember the parents and volunteers having to clean the rooms … it was a grim job having to clean up the possum poo,” he tells upstart.

“There were only four showers and with a pretty quick turnaround between games, often you wouldn’t get time to shower after the game.”

This year Fitzroy Senior Football Club celebrated its 10th anniversary of having a women’s team, reflecting the growth of women’s sport at the venue over the past decade.

Discussions about building new changerooms have been ongoing since 2014 when the women’s team was first introduced, but any construction is yet to get underway. It was deemed inappropriate for men and women to continue sharing the same rooms, despite the numbers of women across both clubs expected to grow into the future.

As a result of these ongoing discussions, the council and the three clubs who use the Brunswick Street Oval facilities began planning for new changerooms to be built to cater to the women players, which were detailed in the 2022 proposed plan. While this has been a long time coming, the benefits the upgrade could bring cannot be understated.

“The new precinct will be huge for the women,” Simmons says. “It will probably make them feel more comfortable not having to share a changeroom with a men’s team that plays after them.”

“I think it will potentially get more female players to the game and club as there may be some on the fence about whether or not they play, and this may be the thing to get them to play.”

It was announced in 2018 that the state government would allocate $6.5 million towards an upgrade of the Brunswick Street Oval facilities. However, delays occurred in the process due to the COVID-19 pandemic which led to a further $6.3 million being allocated in 2022 to cover increased costs.

While a plan is yet to be approved, work is expected to commence on a new sports pavilion in the near future. The council confirmed that this would begin when all stakeholders had agreed on the design concept.

“Council is committed to delivering this project and is working with key stakeholders including sporting clubs and the Victorian Government to establish a revised design,” a spokesperson said.

They attributed the slow delivery to supply chain issues and the rising cost of materials and labour.

“In addition, the construction costs came in significantly over budget. As a result, we were unable to commence construction of Stage 1 of the new sports pavilion as planned in late 2023 and the original scope of the project was no longer feasible due to the significant increase in costs.”

The proposed plan for the redevelopment on the Yarra City Council website has the grandstand receiving some minor redevelopments to maintain its safety. But the plan includes a new sports pavilion, which is to be built in the forward pocket at the city end. It will include four changerooms, with two allocated to each gender. This addition will create more of an inclusive environment and a better overall experience for the local community.

Simmons believes that the new sporting precinct will be a great facility for all of the key stakeholders that use the venue.

“The new facilities will be a massive positive for the Fitzroy Football Clubs and the Edinburgh Cricket Club,” he says.

Simmons believes that the facilities will have massive benefits for the football club because the leagues the both clubs play in are two of the more popular leagues in Melbourne.

“To give the players more space and better equipment in the changerooms like showers will no doubt make the club an even stronger community.”

Article: Hugo O’Callaghan is a third-year Bachelor of Media and Communications (Sports Media and Journalism) student at La Trobe University. You can follow him on Twitter @hugo_ocallaghan

Photo: Supplied by Author