Indoor Sports Centre for Canberra's North Close to a Reality

Canberra’s North could have its own indoor sports centre as soon as the middle of this year.

Indoor cricket in particular has struggled since the Lyneham Indoor Sports Centre was forced to close in July 2012.

Cameron Walter, of Indoor Cricket ACT, states that a number of players were lost from the game after the Lyneham closure.

“The closure of Lyneham had a massive hit on participation levels. We lost about 40 teams.”

But these players could soon return as Ben Santosuosso, who also manages the Kaleen Indoor Sports Centre, is the lease holder of the new centre to be based in the Gold Creek region of north Canberra. He says

that there is already a large amount of interest in the centre despite construction not even beginning yet.

“We’ve already had people that have said if you open in Gungahlin we want to play there because it’s just convenient.”

The new centre will focus more on cricket and will take some of the pressure off Kaleen Indoor Sports, which has a full indoor sports schedule as it is.

Santosuosso also believes that the opportunity is there to increase junior involvement in indoor sport.

“There’s a lot of families in Gungahlin and we don’t do much junior competition here (in Kaleen). We can do junior comps, it just opens up a lot more options.”

The plans for the new centre have been submitted and while it has faced some opposition from local residents, Santosuosso believes that construction is just a matter of time away.

“It’s going to happen. All the plans have been drawn up so just waiting now.”

This will be welcome news for indoor cricketers in north Canberra as Kaleen’s limited space for cricket forced players either had to travel to Kambah or Weston Creek to play. Cameron Walter says that made it tough for people to commit to playing.

“The reality is Kaleen has limited scope on cricket. For people in the north it’s a 20 to 30 minute drive just to play indoor cricket so that’s a tough sell.”

Mr Walter also stated that with indoor cricket now controlled by Cricket ACT and Cricket Australia, they can offer more to assist a new centre.

“I’m pretty confident that what we’re doing here would represent more numbers for them.”

Ian Morrow, whose team Wooo! played at Lyneham for a number of years, agrees that it can only be a good thing for Canberra.

“After Lyneham closed we finished playing indoor cricket. With a new centre there’s going to be an opportunity for a lot of the old players to take it up again but I’d imagine there’s probably a lot of new people in Canberra’s north who’d love to play as well.”

According to Mr Santosuosso the new centre will not just be a boost for indoor cricket.

“Basically opening a new centre helps us, as we’re increasing our business but it will benefit the community because we’re really doing it for the community. A new facility will bring people in and it will be a bit different to other centres and also having two centres would allow us to possibly run inter-centre sport competitions.”

The idea of inter-centre matches is something that will surely get players interested as the possibility of being named the best indoor sports team in north Canberra would await the winner.

“It is exciting.” Santosuosso added.

He also stated that a website, phone number and yellow pages listing had already been crated for the centre while a logo had also already been designed.