Sports field development requires team approach

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 19/06/2015 (3745 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There may not be two sports more dependent on teamwork than soccer and football.

Both require a wide range of players performing their own tasks but still working in unison to turn potential chaos into success.

With the Brandon Youth Soccer Association and Westman Youth Football Association both looking for permanent homes, perhaps it’s time for both organizations to take a page from the playbook and team up in an effort to bring Brandon some facilities that will serve the city well for years to come. Entries in the Kraft Project Play contest have been submitted on behalf of both organizations. The $250,000 top prize would be a good foundation for youth soccer, which is in dire need of a replacement for the frequently flooded Optimist Park. Since Optimist was last playable, soccer teams have been forced to play on overtaxed school fields, which are unable to handle the wear and tear put on them during the busy spring season. Youth football is played at Crocus Plains, with the organization forced to keep its equipment in storage containers and game and practice times subject to cancellation if the fields aren’t up to the burden.

There is a growing number of examples of combined facilities in Canada. In these pages last week, columnist Shaun Cameron pointed to the Methanex Bowl, which has opened up Medicine Hat, Alta., to hosting notable football and soccer events. In recent years, Regina has made a significant investment in Leibel Field, an artificial turf facility for both soccer and football. Another entry in the Project Play contest is the planned Access Event Centre in Morden, which would feature 12 soccer pitches and a football field.

The City of Brandon has a major leadership role to play in this potential partnership as well. The fields mentioned above are all municipal facilities, and the City of Brandon appears to be leaning that way as well, teaming up with the province for a feasibility study on sports fields that should be complete by November.

Unfortunately, no matter what the study reveals, it will be a long time before local youngsters are digging their cleats into the turf given the time it takes to properly develop a field.

Still, it’s an idea well worth pursuing.

Brandon’s recent history in collaborative attempts to develop a major recreational facility hasn’t been inspiring. A planned partnership between Brandon University and the YMCA broke down, resulting in two sparkling new fitness facilities only 14 blocks apart. Worse yet was the following ill-fated attempt to combine the city’s indoor aquatic facilities under one roof that left us with a scaled-down project at the YMCA and a money-leaking Sportsplex pool that cost Brandon the 2017 Canada Summer Games and still won’t be up to national competition standards even after a multi-million dollar upgrade.

But that’s in the past and this column is about the future. The decisions made today on large-scale recreational projects will affect our city and our quality of life for decades to come, and we need to keep that long-term outlook in mind and stay committed to our goals.

Let’s get this one right.