CANBERRA has some of the worst – if not the worst – basketball facilities and infrastructure in comparison to other capital cities across the country.

So says Grant Keys, Weston Creek Woden Dodgers Basketball Club vice-president, who has played basketball at high levels (“mostly”), has worked as a coach and as an administrator with the Dodgers for the past three years.

He says there’s not many basketball stadiums across the country he hasn’t played in and Canberra is probably at the bottom when it comes to quality. 

He’s been in the ACT since 2001 and says: “We’re certainly being left behind.” 

According to a recent audit report conducted by the Dodgers on its five facilities in the Woden Valley/Weston Creek area, Grant says not one of its facilities are of competition standard. 

“None have scoring equipment, all have wooden backboards (competition standard backboards are made with high-quality glass), line markings are all old and the floorings are slippery and can be quite dangerous,” he says. 

At one of the facilities, Grant says the flooring is bubbling and cracking in parts. 

“We don’t put any of our elite teams there because it’s not a safe environment,” he says. 

“[And] the U10s and Aussie Hoops programs use lower rings, but we’re not able to offer training for under 10s and Aussie Hoops kids because we don’t have rings that we can lower.”

What’s worse is that the club, a not-for-profit community organisation, has to charge participants, parents and carers high fees to be able to pay the hire fees for the facilities they use – even though the quality of the facilities aren’t up to standard. 

“Our committee works hard to keep fees as low as possible, however, our costs and fees continue to rise while the standard of our ageing, shared-use training facilities are declining, making the case for fee increases harder to justify to our members each year,” Grant says. 

“While we understand that items such as floor resurfacing and installation of quality rings and backboards are not cheap, we are seeing investments in a range of sporting facility upgrades around the city and hope that as one of the highest participation sports with the strongest growth rates, the maintenance and hire costs of our basketball stadiums can also be considered in line with other sports.”

Grant wants to see the Dodgers, the ACT government, Basketball ACT, and other stakeholders, such as the Southern Cross Club, who own one of the facilities they use, collectively develop a pathway to get these indoor courts up to standard. 

“[But] we need the government to drive this,” he says. 

Beyond the upgrades, and following the demolition of the Woden basketball stadium and CIT, the club is in need of a new multi-court facility to meet the demand of people in the south wanting to play basketball. 

“We’re at capacity, we’re turning away kids every week and we just don’t have any room to grow. We don’t have anywhere to put new teams,” he says.

Grant believes a facility with five or six courts would help them meet the demand and would allow the club to grow as well. 

“We’re seeing well over 20 per cent growth at the moment and that’s without doing anything – no promotion at schools,” he says. 

Of the more than 45 teams the club has, Grant says they have about 10 players per team, and because there’s only five players on the court at a time, he says it means there’s not a lot of court time to go around. 

And, as the club has no central hub, a new multi-court facility could mean the club would have somewhere to base itself out of.

Currently the Woden Valley Community Council has a petition running in the Legislative Assembly urging the ACT government to build a multi-purpose sports stadium in Woden. 

The club’s audit also highlighted a need for outdoor three-on-three (called 3×3) courts, which is a new development in basketball.

“There’s a big push to move more towards 3×3 in summer. As a club we’re a little worried that we don’t have any facilities on the south side for 3×3,” Grant says.   

Basketball ACT has invested really heavily in the development of 3×3 courts, located behind the Belconnen Basketball Stadium, which the ACT government helped fund, he says. 

“The University of Canberra has a 3×3 facility down the road, also in Belconnen, which got $215,000 of federal government funding to build.

“What does that mean for our club if we’re moving towards 3×3? How are we going to get the kids to get out and play without sending them out to Belconnen?”

Sports stadium petition: citynews.com.au/2021/petition-calls-for-sports-stadium-in-woden/