Knights Stadium facility upgrades are almost complete with new irrigation and drainage systems, perimeter fencing, turf for pitches 2 and 3 and an inaugural small-sided pitch 4.
Knights Stadium is one of the most iconic grounds in Australian football and has a storied history dating back to 1989, highlighting the longevity of the Knights’ success in Victorian football.
In an interview with Soccerscene, Melbourne Knights President Simon Pincic discusses the progress at Somers Street from its start in January, the clubs view on improving the women’s teams and how the Knights continue to focus on youth development at all ages.
The upgrades were confirmed in early January are part of a big plan by the Knights to ‘provide a leading sporting facility in Melbourne’s West.’
After the announcement of the upgrades in January, how are the developments coming along at Somers Street?
Simon Pincic: We’re now most of the way there, getting through the final stages and we hope the bulk of this project is completed by the end of next week.
It started out with doing a bit of pitch work just to make our playing surfaces better and we kind of adapted and evolved from what was a six week project to now a four month project.
We ripped up the existing surfaces then added drainage and irrigation to both pitches, levelling off the pitches then finishing it off by installing the turf.
Pitch 3 is down by the end of next week. It’s the training ground and now we’re able to make that a full size, community ground for the u18’s NPL side.
We were also able to add in a small-sided pitch for our younger age groups, so the u8’s and 9’s can play there.
In addition to that there is new perimeter fencing around those pitches, added footpaths, and then the final touch is installing new lighting for Pitch 3 but that probably won’t be until next year when we are planning on upgrading the lighting on Pitch 2.
The upgrades and your previous statements at events suggest there is an emphasis on youth development for the Knights. Has that been a big discussion point for the Knights board members?
Simon Pincic: The club have always prided ourselves on giving our juniors a chance. Every season or every second season we tend to push one or two of our junior players to the senior squad. They don’t always make it at the senior level, but we give them a couple of years in that space.
Recently we had [Luka] Kolic pretty much play two entire seasons as an 18 and 19 year old and then went on to sign for Melbourne Victory. As proud as we are of that sort of stuff, we think we can do better with the younger age groups.
Really putting a lot more emphasis into that real grassroots level so from the youngest ages of three to six and starting teams from the u7’s where we really drive home skill development and that sort of stuff.
The goal is trying to develop these players so we can have a crop of ten or twenty that come in from the u7 level and majority of them are still there when they get to the u18 or u23 level so instead of just poaching talent from elsewhere, we can utilise the players from our own set up.
What is the focus on women’s football now with the increased participation across the country? Is that a priority for the Knights?
Simon Pincic: With the youth set up, it’s not just with the boys but with the girls as well. We haven’t had much luck with that recently when we lost our senior women’s side a couple of years ago and we’re working on improving some facilities for them as well.
Part of the project includes adding girls and women’s changerooms and putting a big emphasis next season on growing the number of junior teams that we’ve got.
With these upgrades, we can have elite level facilities for women in the west which doesn’t exist at the moment so hopefully within a few years we can build that up, have most age groups and build an elite pathway for the girls to follow.
The stadium seems to be a part of a long-term goal to be one of the biggest clubs in the country. Are there any future ambitions for the club and the stadium that the Knights are focusing on?
Simon Pincic: We’ve got a master plan that we started around the start of Covid and have been campaigning for quite a while.
The southern end of our stadium will be flattened, the terracing behind that southern goal, which faces pitches two and three, will be removed and the new club house will be built there with some new terracing and stadium seating behind there.
Also the removal of the old clubhouse and the installation of the new synthetic pitch which is all part of a grand plan.
We obviously need a small amount of funding to get that started and we will breakdown how we complete these tasks and work around any issues.
There will be refurbishments to the clubrooms, changing rooms and stadium terracing to ensure we can host the bigger matches like the Brisbane Roar one again in the upgraded stadium.
There is quite a grand plan there and this year we are taking that first step to completing that clubroom plan.
