Newbridge Football Ground in ruin

By Emma Sartori
Updated November 7 2012 - 4:25am, first published January 16 2011 - 10:59am
devastated: Newbridge Football Club member Alan Wilson inspects the damage at his club’s ground. Pictures: Brendan McCarthy
devastated: Newbridge Football Club member Alan Wilson inspects the damage at his club’s ground. Pictures: Brendan McCarthy
The remains of the footy ground.
The remains of the footy ground.

As floodwaters from the raging Loddon River subside in Newbridge the extent of damage to the Newbridge football ground has become evident.Newbridge Football Club president Ron Trimble said the effects of floodwaters would devastate the club. “The damage is a bit more significant than we expected,” he said.“The canteen, service and bar areas are completely demolished. “Parts of the change rooms have been partially destroyed.“Our temporary office site has floated down the river along with the water tanks that supplied water to our facilities.” Mr Trimble said the football oval’s point posts had been pulled from the ground but the goalposts were still standing. The netball courts, that were new, survived but the coach’s boxes and fences had been demolished.He said the damage the ground had received could put its 2011 Loddon Valley Football League season in doubt. “The courts are OK, but the fence is destroyed.“The scoreboard has been uprooted. We found it at the other end of the ground.“If we potentially can’t play football here next season it’s going to have a huge impact on the town,” he said. Mr Trimble said he couldn’t put a figure on what it would cost to repair the damage and said before the floods the club had been lobbying to upgrade their facilities.“It was our intention to build new facilities at the end of the 2011 season,” he said.“We’ve been lobbying for funding to build new club rooms.“We haven’t got the funding, and now, we haven’t got the old facilities either.”Newbridge was evacuated on Friday as the Loddon River burst its banks and inundated the town. Mr Trimble said he had lived in Newbridge his whole life and had never seen anything like this before. The largest floods Newbridge had ever seen before was when Laanecoorie Reservoir Weir collapsed in 1909. “This is the highest level the river has ever reached apart from when the weir burst,” he said. “Nobody had any idea the water would come this high. Never in my wildest dreams did I think this would happen.”Despite the destruction the Loddon River caused Newbridge, Mr Trimble said an army of people were out in force yesterday helping to begin clean up efforts for those seriously affected. He said what the community was seeing was simply mind-boggling.“With disasters like this you’re initially devastated,” he said.“But we’re a community and one by one, piece by piece, we’re going to put it back together.“Our community has pulled together in the past three days and I wish all the other communities affected the best too. We’re not the only ones in this.”

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