Posted on 30 November, 2007
In a boost for basketball in the area, Oxley stadium will open its doors in February 2008. The new facility will ease some of the pressure for courts faced by basketballs in the region.
Kilsyth Basketball will utilise three courts on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights and all five courts on a Saturday. This will enable growth in both junior and senior competitions, alleviating some of the double byes, late night games and enabling more teams to be entered.
With over a 1000 teams now playing per week and a 9.6% increase participants over the past two years Kilsyth Basketball is seeing a strong growth in the demand to play the sport. With future demand expected to continue growing, plans to build at least two new courts at the Kilsyth Sports Centre on Liverpool Road will be carried out with a likely completion in 2011.
Already the largest association in Australia, Kilsyth is hard at work increasing the profile of the sport at the grassroots level through its Kids First program. In 2007 and again next year 2000 prep students in the area all received their own size 5 basketball and over 16,000 children have been involved in clinics.
“The use of Oxley Stadium will ease some of the pressure for courts in the area, but with the current growth we are experiencing we still need to continue to plan for the future and move ahead with the proposed redevelopment at the Kilsyth Sports Centre”, said Kilsyth Basketball General Manager Dick Thomas.
“Oxley Stadium is a modern, state of the art facility which we are proud to be able to use. It will result in the continued growth of basketball in the area, and provide more opportunities for the community to get active”.
“Our plans to further extend the Kilsyth Sports Centre will continue to move ahead, we are currently waiting on council support, but envisaged being able to start this project in July 2009.”
Games will begin at Oxley Stadium in the New Year with the Kilsyth Basketball community eager to move into the facility and take advantage of the new courts.
