Covered: A number of grass courts at Shepparton Lawn Tennis Club remain inundated with water.
Photo by
Megan Fisher
Shepparton Lawn Tennis Club is staring at the possibility of a prolonged clean-up and recovery effort, with 21 of the club’s 26 grass tennis courts still inundated with floodwater.
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With the site neighbouring the Goulburn River, floodwater ravaged the club’s courts last week, as the Goulburn peaked at a major flood level of 12.06 metres on Monday, October 17.
Shepparton Lawn secretary Jarrod Bingham said with the club facilities now accessible after water receded around Victoria Park Lake, the club had put significant effort into pumping water off three of its main courts, as well as two others closer to the levee.
“It’s pretty challenging at the moment, naturally, through the river level dropping and work on our end with drainage and small pumps, we’ve been able to get water off our front three courts and two up near the levee bank,” Bingham said.
“But most courts are at least one metre under water and some potentially more; 21 of 26 courts are still inundated with water, with half a metre to in excess of a metre.”
Bingham said the club was anxious to get water off the courts as soon as possible, with the condition of the grass a growing concern.
“We’re getting pretty desperate to get water off the courts, we’re worried about long-term impacts, our front three will recover fairly well with water off them, but we’re not sure about the others now that water has been there for a considerable amount of time,” he said.
“I’m not an expert, but if the grass doesn’t get oxygen and sunlight, it’ll slowly start dying away.
“It’s now been eight or nine days, we’re starting to get worried that it may get to the point that we’re going to have an issue on our hands where courts aren’t in a playable condition going forward.
Setback: Water continues to be pumped from Shepparton Lawn’s tennis courts.
“We’re in a great stage of unknown until we can see the grass, we don’t know what’s happened until we can get that water off them and assess.”
The club has had a number of pumps operating to remove water from its courts, Bingham said, but was hopeful of further council support to speed up the process.
Shepparton Lawn’s upcoming tennis tournaments, and how the club will navigate the Goulburn Murray Lawn Tennis Association and Shepparton District Junior Tennis Association seasons, remain up in the air.
“We’re starting to worry about our new year tournaments, we’re hopeful that some of the courts are playable by January so that the club can get players in, but it’s also something that benefits the town,” Bingham said.
“It starts to have implications further down the line; we’ll be in discussions with leagues as to how we navigate the season — if we can get water off some courts they will be playable, but we may need to talk to associations into moving home matches in the short term.”
Bingham thanked the wider tennis community for its show of support, after a number of clubs had offered up their facilities.
“A big thanks goes out to McEwen Reserve for offering our coach Sam (Tozer) to coach there — the tennis community is a close-knit one,” Bingham said.
“We’ve had support from clubs in the GMLTA that have offered up the use of their courts in the short term — Yarrawonga, Cobram and Tatura have offered, and even beyond that.
“A huge amount of people have reached out and expressed concern and support.”
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