By Ruza zivkusic
CONVENIENCE is a word long forgotten by these players.
Westvale Olympic Soccer Club’s only women’s team suffers greatly as it does not have a change room but has to share the men’s changing rooms at McKechnie Reserve in St Albans.
The 17 players who make up the team face having visitors or other players run into the crammed room to use the toilets while they are changing.
And it is no fun when the visiting teams make “disgusting” remarks when they see the poor facility or when the soccer masseurs have to use the shower area in the changing room to massage players.
The lack of proper facilities scared away the club’s women’s team three years ago but most of them decided to give it a second go and returned to the club earlier this year.
But enough is enough and Brimbank City Council has been called in to help, the club’s president George Loulakis said.
Club members collected more than 300 signatures for the petition requesting that a girls’ changing room be built.
The petition was presented to councillors at the last council meeting two weeks ago.
Mr Loulakis, who has been at the Westvale Olympic club for the past 25 years, said that he planned to have an under 13 years old girls’ team next year.
“Having the facilities improved is going to be more vital because then you’ve got the parents saying where is their privacy,” Mr Loulakis said.
“These girls, most of them have brothers or cousins in the boys’ team, they’ve got the confidence to go in there and say ‘get out so we can use the dressing room’.
“But it shouldn’t have to be the case, they should have the space of their own,” he said.
The women train twice a week and play matches on Sunday.
When the senior boys team finish training during late evenings, the girls still have to play because they have to wait for the boys to use the changing room.
“They don’t shower because they’re scared of their privacy. They can come in filthy as pigs, they just put on whatever dry clothes they’ve got on top of that and rush off home to get a shower,” Mr Loulakis said.
Sandra Agathouli, 22, said she felt under-privileged having to play under such conditions.
“The away teams look at it with a disgust on their face. They don’t even want to change here,” Ms Agathouli said.
The facility was originally built for juniors in 1975, Mr Loulakis said.
“As far as the boys are concerned they can accept it because they have got a bigger tolerance, they haven’t got the shame factor. With girls it’s a different issue because most of the male supporters that come to the club, they would go straight through the corridor and use the male toilets,” he said.
A Brimbank City Council’s spokesperson said the club’s issues raised in the petition would be investigated and reported back to council.
Cr Troy Atanasovski, who has been in close contact with the club’s members for the past years, said he was confident things “would work out before the next season in March”.
