West Adelaide Hellas and Adelaide Olympic are among a group of several South Australian football clubs set to benefit from a midweek announcement by the South Australian state government treasurer Tom Koutsantonis of a $10 million budget measure to build eight artificial pitches and upgrade football facilities at clubs across Adelaide.

Treasurer Koutsantonis said in a statement: “Our football clubs need facilities to meet this ongoing demand, and the state government investment in artificial pitches − which can have three times as many games played on them as turf pitches − will help meet that demand.

“We want to do everything we can to encourage South Australia’s young people to be fit, active and social, and investing in facilities at sporting clubs is one of the best ways we can do this.”

The treasurer described the budget measure as “the largest ever cash injection into grass roots football in South Australia’s history”.

West Adelaide will be a major beneficiary, with two artificial pitches to be built at its Kilburn Sportsplex in Kilburn.

These new pitches will enable the club to consolidate a number of bases used at present for senior men’s and women’s teams (both NPL and amateur) all on the one site.

“The club since 1962 has never had a home base,” chairman Alex Alexandrou told Neos Kosmos.

“They’ve played for a lot of years out of Hindmarsh. So 60 years later, since 1963, we’ll finally have a home ground, a home base, home clubrooms that the club can control and hold its own functions and finally have a home.
“Unfortunately with some of the Hellenic clubs around Australia, we seem to have always been moving from ground to ground to ground. And our number one goal in the last decade has been to secure a facility. We’re lucky enough to have done that.”

Alexandrou expects the two pitches to be operational within 12 months.

“Our pitches will be administered by ourselves, but at the same time we hope for, and we’re sure we can get other community groups to use them, as well as local schools. And that’s the beauty of the artificial pitches, we can have a lot of usage.”

Adelaide Olympic will also benefit from the state government funding, with an artificial pitch to be built at its home base.