Speak Up or Miss Out – A Message from the Club President

The past week has again highlighted why your Club Committee is working hard to have two all-weather playing surfaces installed at Centenary Park.

Games have been washed out over two consecutive weekends, training cancelled, and make-up games repeatedly rescheduled.

Unfortunately, this is no longer unusual — it’s the new normal.

This isn’t simply a matter of better maintaining the grass to keep Centenary open more often. Council understands that, which is why a majority of Inner West councillors support all-weather surfaces as the best way to cater for the 450 to 550+ players using Centenary Park each week.

That demand is only growing. Female registrations at Burwood FC have increased by 62% over the past decade.

Ground closures and mid-week senior games that replace training sessions also disproportionately impact our youngest players. Last season alone, our Under 6 to Under 12 players missed out on more than 1,300 hours of football.

A year ago, Inner West Council received a near-record number of submissions from Club members supporting an all-weather pitch.

Now, we need even more of you to move from the sidelines and actively push for change.

In the coming weeks, you’ll see the poster below around the Club, featuring a QR code you can scan to register your support directly with Council. We’ll also be encouraging visiting teams to do the same.

For its part the Club has engaged with other park users, including cricket, to understand their views. The Committee has also made a conscious decision not to engage online with the misleading claims being circulated on social media by opponents.

This is not an all-or-nothing proposal — 40% of Centenary Park will remain grass-covered.

But we do know this: if our own members don’t speak up, we risk missing out on — or significantly delaying — a facility that will allow the Club to grow and thrive into the future.

Please don’t leave it to others to speak up — or we all miss out.

Michael Makaritis

President