As the Wanneroo Basketball Association prepares to exit the Joondalup Basketball Stadium, bound for HBF Arena, at the end of 2017, a special 3-part web article series will focus on the early years of the Stadium.

Take a trip down memory lane, and learn about the stadium that has been the 'Home of the Wolves' for the past 35 years. 

 

Part 1 | The Foundation Years 

By Clelia Gough 

 
The Committee that built the Joondalup Basketball Stadium for the Wanneroo Basketball Association were both members and players when the decision was made to build our own stadium.

The reason was simply because we were so dispersed and the Shire of Wanneroo wanted us to vacate most of the Recreation Centres that were used as playing venues.

The Committee consisted of:

Allan Holst - President

Peter Smith -Vice President

Mary Smith - Treasurer

Clelia Gough - Secretary

Both Allan and Peter were presented with Life Memberships by the Wanneroo Basketball Association.

After many council meetings with the Wanneroo Shire, who eventually agreed to assist and guarantee the leasing of the land and construction of the stadium, Alan Holst approached almost every corporation in Perth and finally managed to get a commitment from the R&I Bank to loan us the funds to build the stadium in Joondalup.

The rest of us assisted in preparing proposals and presentations and working out ways of generating enough money to build the stadium – as representatives we all took responsibility to repay the loan.

Finally the pad went down and of course we had a pad party which included the 7 children in the three families, we toasted the Stadium to come with champagne and looked forward to a successful future in Basketball.

We worked day and night to get the stadium operational and none of us received a cent for our efforts, we did it for the love of the game and the Association! We all coached Junior or Senior Teams, played ourselves and/or umpired most days and nights.

Peter Smith was the senior and most qualified Umpire, so he started a Junior Umpiring Clinic. These were very well attended and we managed to qualify a number of young players who were able to umpire the junior grades (assisted by Senior Umpires for each game)

Due to the sheer volumes of junior games, we still had to hire out several Recreation Centres from the Wanneroo Shire Council, (even after the stadium was built) some junior games were played outside in the summer on bitumen courts every Saturday from 8.00am through to 7.30pm (The seniors played from 6.00 to 10.00pm every night in the Stadium).  

Mary Smith and I sat down each season and created the playing rosters for over 3,000 children and nearly 2,000 adults – we did have a formula that worked, so had very few complaints.

Carol and Reg Holmes also worked tirelessly with us (and their 3 children), I understand Carol is still involved with the scoring for the Wildcats.

We all took turns at; manning the gate, serving in the bar, preparing the hot food and drinks until Mary and Van Kailis leased the canteen a few years after we opened the stadium.

As one of the bigger Associations we were involved and on the Committee to establish the State Basketball League – SBL which later evolved into the current National League and the Wild Cats of today (the majority of which were Junior players for Wanneroo).

 

Part 2 | Operating the Stadium – due for August issue

Part 3 | Memoirs and Stories – due for September issue