On Saturday and Sunday, Port Macquarie Little Athletics Club hosted the Zone Athletics carnival, inviting all the other clubs in the area, to bring their families and friends to watch our future champions.
Despite some brilliant performances by these wonderful young athletes, and the best efforts of Port Macquarie Little Athletics tireless committee members and parents, the scene was nothing short of embarrassing.
The condition of the track was disgusting. The track was pot holed, undulating, un-mowed, and sodden. If it wasn’t bad enough that the council couldn’t mow the grass properly for the event, it was even worse when some buffoon left the sprinklers going despite all of the rain in recent weeks. It was shattering to see parents literally in tears, bucketing water off the track to salvage what could only be described as a boggy mess.
Despite council promising for years to allocate a suitable permanent venue for our athletes, it’s another case of this council’s ineptitude. Rest assured there will be no Cathy Freemans or Matt Shirvingtons coming out of Port Macquarie, because any athlete worth their salt will move to another town just to have somewhere to run.
To add salt into the wound, due to future regional boundary changes, there will be no synthetic track within the whole region. This means that if our athletes manage to progress past this level, the first time they will see a synthetic track will be at the State Carnival. Without the ability to access a synthetic track, our athletes will be severely disadvantaged, and are destined for mediocrity.
Athletics is an Olympic sport, and every four years the world stops to watch, but they won’t be watching anyone from the North Coast Region, because they will be stuck in the mud of Stuart Park Football Field, where they are temporarily homed. Yes, a football field. What is acceptable for a game of rugby is not suitable for athletics; they are two entirely different fields that require different maintenance. It’s no different to erecting a tennis net in the middle of the paddock and suggesting it’s a suitable grass court.
These athletes are not asking for the world, just one suitable venue to participate in their sport. Every other sport in this area has multiple facilities, our athletes have none.
Can someone in council show leadership and make a decision, give our athletes a permanent home?
Name withheld
