Sports field allocations under review

One football club’s battle for field space highlights the challenges caused by Auckland Council’s ‘‘legacy’’ sports field allocation system.

Albany United is the largest senior club north of the Auckland Harbour Bridge, but the club struggles to accommodate afterwork trainings on floodlit fields.

Last season, alongside 36 senior sides, the club based at Rosedale Park also had to juggle the training needs of more than 35 junior teams, as well as 16 associate teams from the Chinese Football Association, Special Olympics and local high schools.

Albany United’s director of football Rashaad Vahed said the club wants Auckland Council to look at the process of field allocation ‘‘to ensure it is fair to everyone’’.

‘‘Trying to provide space for members, partners and schools partners is almost impossible when we can just about provide for 15 per cent of the club through the field allocations we receive,’’ Vahed said.

Albany United’s president Kieron Henare said other clubs in the area, that have home fields and clubrooms, have access and control over those facilities for most of the year, however, Albany United share field space with North Harbour Softball.

‘‘For the six months we have the field, we have only one field with lighting and this field has no drainage or sand base, meaning that, once the first good rain of winter arrives, the only lit field

‘‘We are moving away from the historical allocation system’’

Auckland Council's Grant Jennings

we have turns to a quagmire for the rest of the season and is not useable,’’ Henare said. ‘‘Once that one field is out, we rely solely on the bookings of community fields to accommodate our several hundred members to train.’’

Albany United received three hours a week of field allocations from Auckland Council over summer for pre-season training, while other local football clubs were given in excess of 20 hours of a week for the same period of time, according to Henare.

‘‘Our more competitive players aren’t able to train regularly in the same manner other football clubs do and so suffer a huge impact in their development which they either seek elsewhere or simply don’t get involved,’’ Vahed said.

When Albany United presented their concerns about field allocation at the Upper Harbour Local Board on February 15, local board member Margaret Miles said: ‘‘I am sure that it is based on legacy, and when each code is asked what they need they also go with what they’ve always had, and what the maximum is they think they’ll get’’.

Fields are allocated by Auckland Council, and council’s principal sports parks specialist Grant Jennings said allocations are based on the booking requests from clubs and monitoring is undertaken throughout the year to confirm that club bookings are genuine and valid.

However, change is coming with a revised version of the council’s Sport Field Allocation Guideline coming out later in the year.

‘‘We are moving away from the historical allocation system which was based on club requests to a more needs-based allocation system,’’ Jennings said. ‘‘This will be based on actual club needs to optimise the use of our sport fields.’’

DAVID JOSEPH/PHOTOTEK Albany United’s home ground at Rosedale Park is in high demand for training and playing.