Central club to get $10k upgrade

Central Rugby League Club secretary Kerry Mason is delighted the clubrooms are in for a makeover. Photo / Ben Fraser

They have been tagged, vandalised and burgled over the years, but now the clubrooms of one of Rotorua's oldest rugby league clubs are about to get a $10,000 makeover.

Central Rugby League club was this week announced as one of two winners, alongside Te Aroha Rugby Club in Hutt Valley, of the Woodstock League Club Fix Up competition. Its clubrooms at Linton Park Reserve on Edmund Rd will receive a $10,000 upgrade in the coming months.

Club secretary Kerry Mason entered the competition after seeing it advertised on the Woodstock Facebook page.

"Our clubrooms have received substantial damage as a result of burglaries and vandalism over the past few years. We have had walls kicked in, holes put in our roof and tagging," Mr Mason said.

"We're a small club with limited financial resources and while we've always known undertaking repairs to the clubrooms was necessary, we always wondered if the money could be put to better use. As a result of winning this prize, we can now use the allocated money on other things, such as buying more gear and uniforms for our younger players," he said.

The club, which has more than 200 players, will celebrate its 70th anniversary in 2019 and the board of trustees has been working hard to return the club to its former glory in time for the celebrations.

"We believe the club and the clubrooms need to be here and have a vital role to play in the Rotorua community. Players come and players go, but the clubrooms are a permanent fixture.

"Being able to give the clubrooms a makeover will help enormously to restore our pride in them," Mr Mason said.

"Our club is located in an area with many low-income families. For the kids of these families, rugby league can give them a future and drive them away from the gang culture that is so dominant in our area and Rotorua.

"We are so grateful to Woodstock for the prize and their support of rugby league.

"Thanks to this competition we will be able to continue to keep our annual fees low and encourage more and more children to join the club without burdening the parents with a massive joining fee."

Rugby league has a long history in New Zealand and Woodstock Bourbon and Cola was proud to support the code, said the company's category manager Laura Youngman.

"While we have high profile sponsorships with the likes of the Vodafone NZ Warriors and the NRL Auckland Nines, we realise that if we want to continue producing great players, like Shaun Johnson and Manu Vatuvei, then rugby league needs to be supported at the grassroots level as well."