Health fear at ground

PLAYERS at one of the Gold Coast’s biggest clubs are risking concussion with hundreds of players forced to train and play on one rock-hard oval.

The Burleigh Bombers Football Club are feeling the effects of a lack of ovals, with their home ground Bill Godfrey Oval heavily compacted from excessive use.

They fear the surface has the potential to harm players in the short and long term.

Burleigh have 35 teams across junior and senior level, with the 29 junior sides the most of any on the Gold Coast.

Bombers president Dean Ryan said the club had found a rise in the number of head injuries in the past year and blamed the hard surface created from a huge amount of foot traffic for it.

“The oval is like concrete,” Ryan said. “We have had more concussions at Burleigh last year than any other ground.

“The ground doesn’t get time to recover because there are 35 teams trying to train on it across each day of the week. It’s just constantly getting trampled into the ground.

“We definitely need another one. Normally there are four different age groups training at the same time on the ground. It’s very difficult.

“There are four under-12 teams so that is 100 players alone there.

“They are actually having to train at Robina one night a week because we can’t get everyone on the field.

“We have 29 junior teams, six senior sides and we are looking at a seventh next year with a second women’s team.”

Ryan said the club was also hindered by having to share the oval with a cricket club.

The sharing agreement interrupted the football club’s pre-season and hurt their performances in the QFA Division 1 men’s competition.

“We didn’t get the right of use to our ground until two rounds into our senior competition this season,” Ryan said.

“We weren’t allowed to use footy boots on the field or run on the centre square. We didn’t even have goalposts until after Round 2.

“We have a lot of new players this year and you can’t start playing together well until you are doing full-field drills. We are playing teams like Maroochydore who have three grounds, no cricket square and can use it for 12 months of the year.”

Ryan said club officials were eyeing land at Burleigh Waters, located behind Marymount College and less than 3km from the current Bombers ground, as they look for options to ease the pressure.

“Ideally we could move the junior club there or get two grounds somewhere and move both the juniors and seniors,” Ryan said.

WE HAVE HAD MORE CONCUSSIONS AT BURLEIGH LAST YEAR THAN ANY OTHER GROUND BURLEIGH PRESIDENT DEAN RYAN