By Aaron Cordy
THE Princess Park, home of the Shepparton Youth Club United Cricket Club (SYCUCC) and Shepparton Swans, is set to become one of the premier sporting pavilions with Council awarding a contract to Moretto Building to design and construct new facilities.
The upgrade has been in the planning for nearly 15 years, with SYCUCC President Steven Nash at the forefront of the upgrade for many years, which became far more pressing after the October 2022 floods.
“We’ve gone from what is our future? To what can our future be?” said Steven.
“I’ve been on this for 15 years. When my son was playing junior cricket here, we were talking about this. They did the master plan, a good seven, nine years ago, where they and master plan doesn’t happen overnight.
“It’s nice that Council’s gone beyond seeing it as a risk. Flooding, it’s a risk, you know, therefore it’s a liability.”
It has been a tough few years for SYCUCC with poor facilities meaning they were training and playing at other grounds. With the new facilities expected to be completed by August next year, the excitement is already beginning to build at SYCUCC
“I feel like we can start to build momentum as a club now. We know what we can strive for, and it’s only one more season of temporary facilities for our events,” said SSYCUCC Committee Member Mel Saunders.
The contract for $4,894,970 will see a new pavilion constructed at Princess Park, raised to prevent future flood damage and will include change rooms/trainers rooms and amenities that meet both AFL, Netball Victoria and Cricket Victoria requirements, a large social room with commercial kitchen and glass frontage views over the oval, umpires facilities and a 3m wide undercover veranda area. “We have a future, and you can start thinking and dreaming about it. What can we be as a club? So, that’s the other real positive as well,” said Steven.
“We can start recruiting, you can come to our club. We’re only in these rooms for one year, and then we’re going to have the best rooms in Shepp. That’s going to help as well for both men’s and women’s cricket.”
