Keilor St Bernard’s athletes cannot wait to test their new facilities at Keilor Park Reserve. 87743_05 Picture: JOE MASTROIANNI
By ADEM SARICAOGLU
KEILOR St Bernard’s Athletic Club is looking forward to the upcoming summer season.
The club’s new synthetic track and facility has allowed them to finally establish a stable base in its Brimbank heartland at Keilor Park Reserve, and club vice president Bianca Share is very excited about it.
“It’s great that we now have a home base that we can call our own, because we’ve been sharing facilities with (St Bernard’s) and the football club there,” Share said.
“It’s a brand-new facility that will eventually have all our equipment needs.”
The club has previously been forced to train at Essendon’s St Bernard’s College and Salesian College in Sunbury, but with this relocation it can finally establish close ties with the community.
“We can start to form links with Keilor Little Athletics Centre, and start recruiting those athletes as they come up through the senior ranks,” Share said.
Club head coach Ron Stobaus said he too was quite impressed with his club’s new base, and was looking forward to a strong showing in this summer’s Athletics Victoria Shield competition.
“Our under-18 boys are picking up, so we’re looking forward to them doing quite well,” Stobaus said.
“Our senior men are stronger as well and for the first time we’re putting in a women’s 40-plus team, so if there’s older ladies that want to try athletics they’ll be certainly welcome.”
Stobaus said there would be teams looking to build on successes from last season.
“We’ve got our Division One women’s team which again we think will be quite strong,” he said.
“They won the premiership with Aberfeldie last year in the North West region and finished fourth in the state.
“That’s probably the highest we’ve been in that, so we’re looking to go on from there.”
Keilor St Bernard’s season officially kicks off at Epping’s Meadowglen International Athletics Stadium on 13 October.
