NEWS – GRFC Chairperson McKinstry says a regional football facility in Geelong is not a pipedream, it’s a reality!

IF adequate funds aren’t invested in local football facilities, the sport will face a major problem in reaching its full capacity and having to turn away potential newcomers to the sport, Geelong Region Football Committee chairman Mike McKinstry said this week.

Speaking on last Tuesday’s edition of the Geelong Region Soccer Show podcast, the newly elected GRFC chairman expressed his excitement at the recent announcement that the City of Greater Geelong had set aside $50,000 in its budget for the development of a business case for a regional football facility in Geelong.

“I don’t think it’s a pipedream at all. Looking at the growth in the sport in recent times, the fact that it’s now on the agenda is really, really, important,” the former GenU Chief Executive told hosts Tonci Prusac and Steve Curtain.

“Often in my experience in both business and in other community organisations that I’ve been involved with, quite often it comes back to that lack of pre-planning that is often the reason why things don’t happen,” explained McKinstry.

“So if they (Council) are going to spend a bit of time actually scoping out a business case, I think is a positive thing in the sense that the chance then of that being developed into a proper, professional proposal that quite frankly is hard to argue against (is good). Then we’ll just wait for them to get support whether that be from federal, state or local,” he added.

According to McKinstry, it’s also recognition of the significant growth of the game both in Geelong and the surrounding regions but that growth comes at a cost.

“If we don’t have proper investment into club facilities, the game will just run out of capacity,” he said.

“I’ll just use the example of kids who will say I can’t get on the field because there aren’t any so I will just go to another sport.”

McKinstry, whose family is heavily heavily involved with the Bellarine Peninsula based Drysdale Soccer Club was excited at the prospect of funding for the next stage of the Drysdale Sporting Precinct being passed at a Geelong Council meeting later that evening.

The motion was subsequently passed, paving the way open for a multi million dollar investment into the sporting facility which is likely to eventually include a full synthetic pitch to be used by Drysdale SC and the wider football community.

To watch the full episode of last Tuesday’s episode of the Geelong Region Soccer Show – which also featured outgoing GRFC chairperson, who is now the newly appointed GRFC Deputy Chair Jo Plummer – click on the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHhC5C7-oK8