Saga’s white Knights
Coast football heavyweights join stadium race, as Brent O’Neill reports
THE Gold Coast Knights will build their own 3000-seat stadium at Carrara in a move that could solve a major headache for A-League hopefuls Gold Coast United.
In the latest development in the long-running stadium saga on the Coast, the Knights are in the process of creating a multistage plan to build a $1.5 million facility at their Croatian Sports Centre headquarters.
Construction will be staged in 800-seat increments each year, with the first lot expected to be complete by the end of the 2019 season – the club’s first in the statewide NPL competition.
With Gold Coast United on the lookout for a home to aid their A-League and WLeague aspirations, Knights president Adrian Puljich believes his club’s bold stadium plan could give their soon-tobe NPL rivals a crucial boost.
“We want the Gold Coast Knights to become a club not only for the Knights and people of the Gold Coast Knights, but for the greater Gold Coast. Why shouldn’t Gold Coast United play from our venue?” Puljich said.
“I’ve had discussions with
Sports Gold Coast and Gold Coast United in relation to what we’re looking to achieve at Gold Coast Knights and we fully support what Gold Coast United are trying to do by
going back into the A-League.
“I’m a believer in what’s going on with football on the Gold Coast.
“It is the highest junior participation sport and there really is an opportunity to capitalise on that.
“We’re in a very unique position whereby we own our land and for us the highest and best use for our type of club … is to provide a service to the local community and an outlet for local footballers that are aspiring to do more. At the moment, Gold Coast United are playing out the back of Robina (Cbus Stadium) on rugby fields and for me as a football lover and as a neutral, it’s something that we need to fix and quickly.
“You don’t have to go and build a Cbus Stadium or a Metricon-type set-up, I don’t think the Gold Coast needs that. It needs a boutique stadium that’s almost no frills, that’s inviting for families.
“As soon as you start doing something spectacular, of course there’s a price tag because it costs money to maintain it, it costs money to service it and that’s where teams get caught out.”
Puljich said he would also approach Gold Coast City Council about funding assistance for the stadium, but said the Knights had the financial capacity to go it alone.
BROADBEACH United will fight fire with fire in their quest to end the red-hot Gold Coast Premier League run of Burleigh Heads.
While the Bulldogs made it seven-straight victories with a come-from-behind win over Surfers Paradise Apollo last Saturday, thirdplaced Broadbeach slipped further off the premiership pace with a shock 2-1 loss away to struggling Murwillumbah.
With striker Matt Hilton (11 goals) leading the way, Burleigh have been near unstoppable this season, scoring 26 times and conceding just four.
But with striker-turned-mid-fielder Shaun Robinson (seven goals) finding form in the Dolphins’ four-game winning streak before the Murwillumbah disaster, they are confident they have the firepower to topple the Bulldogs when they meet at Nikiforides Park tonight.
“Ball speed (will be key), just moving the ball quick,”
Robinson, 30, said. “We were struggling at the start of the season because the Commonwealth Games took our fields away for a month. Our
fitness was really bad at the start of the year (but) the last month or so we’ve gotten that fitness back and that has definitely made us play better.
“Everyone is buzzing on the field and our ball speed is much quicker and the results have showed prior to last week.
“In May we really hit some form.
“We’ve got a quality side, good depth as well. I’m going all right, not amazing but not horrible.
“It’s a must-win game. If they beat us the league is pretty much gone, they’ll go nine points clear of us so we definitely have to win this game or we can kiss the season goodbye.”