The BFNL last year celebrated 25 years since netball was introduced to the Bendigo football league.
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During the celebrations, stories were told of netballers first playing at a primary school where the court wasn’t full size, then on to grass tennis courts and later, on a sloping hard surface.
The courts may have changed, but many other barriers for women playing sport have not. The city’s premier sporting facility lacks running water at the netball courts, doesn’t offer anywhere for netballers of all ages to change, nor does it have toilets.
The closest toilets are on the opposite side of the oval, on View Street – and are substandard – and the toilets and facilities at the nearby aquatic centre are not always accessible.
While male sporting teams are provided with adequate and accessible change rooms and toilets, our female athletes are not afforded the same necessary amenities.
It is a common issue at sporting venues across our region, and while some have started addressing the inequity, many others have not. Central Victoria has produced some great female athletes, despite the added barriers they have while training and competing with inadequate facilities.
Not only would better facilities help our athletes, but it would offer economic benefits in bringing major sporting events to our city. Wouldn’t it be worth celebrating if we could attract high-level competition in women’s netball, football, cricket or other if we provided visitors with facilities at the standards expected by sporting governing bodies? It is well beyond time all female athletes were given the same supports to participate in their chosen sport as boys and men.
There is a draft master plan for works at the QEO, which could include change rooms at the rear of the football score board, but that remains a draft and is dependent on funding. It is time to see a commitment to that plan.
The QEO needs a facility such as that offered in Kilmore, where women and girls have access to hygienic, safe toilets. private change rooms, fresh water and shelter. And that facility needs to be where it can be easily accessed by those playing sport – not on the opposite side of a football oval.
We should not be treating our girls and women as lesser sportspeople, and citizens. They deserve equal support to participate in sport, and soon.
Nicole Ferrie, editor