A big change for Richmond football
Cutting the ribbon at the opening of the new changing facility at the Richmond Football Clubrooms on Friday night. They are from left; Richmond Football committee member Nick Rose, Tasman District Council reserves and facilities manager Grant Reburn, TDC councillor Kit Maling, TDC mayor Tim King and architect and Richmond Bogans football player Aaron Walton. Photo: Hayden Bryant.
Richmond Football Club officially opened its new changing facilities at Jubilee Park last Friday in time for the start of the 2025 season.
The $650,000 project was two-thirds funded by Tasman District Council with Air Rescue and Community Services, Richmond Lions, Pub Charity and the club’s own fundraising efforts making up the rest.
Work started on the project in October. It houses four new changing facilities with toilets, showers and a gear shed.
The building has allowed for new referee facilities to be built in the original clubrooms, which sits adjacent to the new building.
Richmond Football Club president Chris Sibbald says he’s thrilled with the building and what it will mean for the club.
“I’m very proud and so grateful for all the support we’ve had. The number of people that have come out to contribute, geez, that was more than I thought we’d have. People were saying we’ll just donate that little bit. That has helped us keep the cost down as much as possible.”
One of the major reasons for the new building was that the club’s all-conquering senior women’s side didn’t have facilities to get changed. With two senior women sides now at the club, Chris says the top team will be given the “number one” changing rooms whenever they play at home.
With work nearing completion on the changing rooms, Chris says the focus will turn to the main clubrooms, where a new paint job is the first task.
“We are a growing club, every year we seem to have more teams, this year we have nine senior teams, which is huge. We now want to bring the rest of the clubrooms up and we have a few other plans that we’ve been holding off on until we see how much money we have left over.”
He said TDC councillor Kit Maling was a huge help in getting support from TDC and that Scott Construction had done a great job of the build.
“There are so many tradies to thank, I can’t name them all, but thank you to everyone who has helped.”
The senior football season is due to kick off on Saturday, 12 April with Richmond hosting 12 teams on opening day.