Friendly Societies Park is now a friendlier, more accessible place for more football players and umpires, with a renovation of the Raynor Pavilion complete.
The upgrade involved a retrofit of the home and away changerooms to provide female friendly, accessible space for players and umpires.
This also saw the creation of a female umpires’ changeroom for the first time.
South Warrnambool FNC President John Ross said that it was exciting to be able to make use of Raynor Pavilion again, with the club hosting Port Fairy for their first game in the new facilities last weekend.
“We’re excited to be back in and we thank the Council for the design and building this for us,” he said.
“Everyone was very happy with what they’ve seen and what’s been done.
“To be able to use the same building and just give it a revamp it has really strengthened the club.
“We’ve got a lot of user groups here and we are very lucky that we’ve got an all-abilities team. We’ve got one of them but we’ve got enough really for two teams and we’ve got three female teams as well.
“To be able to accommodate all of them is a huge plus for the club.”
South Warrnambool has 228 female participants across football and netball, with their all-abilities team “the Hurricanes” having 40 players.
Warrnambool Mayor Debbie Arnott said that Council was proud to complete an infrastructure project that will help more people play sport, in this instance, football.
“It’s one of the fastest growing sports – just look at female participation here at South Warrnambool,” she said.
“It’s a great community project. It’s helping communities of all abilities and all genders participate in sport.
“We are very appreciative of the patience of the club and its supporters while this important upgrade was carried out.”
The $500,000 project used funds from Council’s Recreation Asset Improvement Budget over the 2021/2022 and 2022/2023 financial years.