🏆 Sport

Meningie clubs join forces on Coorong Community Sports Centre project

A fundraising raffle with a $10,000 prize will be the first step towards making the vision a reality.

Peri Strathearn

Jul 3, 2025 — 2 min read

Six Meningie sporting clubs hope to combine their efforts to get a community function centre built in the town. Image: Meningie Community Sports Ground.

Meningie’s sporting clubs have outlined a bold vision for the town’s future, and launched a fundraising drive to get it started.

Six clubs – representing River Murray football and netball, Murray Towns cricket, golf, tennis and horse riding – hope to join forces on a state-of-the-art function centre at Meningie Oval.

As well as giving the clubs a new home, the Coorong Community Sports Centre would be able to cater to functions of up to 350 people.

Not only would that be big enough for football and netball dinners which regularly attract 200 people, it would also make the town a destination for major events.

The centre would be the only venue of a comparable size anywhere in the stretch from Murray Bridge to the South East.

Meningie Community Sports Ground president Henry Angas hoped the project would revitalise the town.

“As a community, it is our duty to provide a sustainable future for our sporting clubs,” he said.

“Top of the list is being financially sustainable, and combining resources is a real solution.”

The current clubrooms at the oval were not sufficient for the community’s needs, he said – and they weren’t up to regulatory standards, either.

Rather than trying to patch over the building’s inadequacies, the six clubs produced a master plan and business case in partnership with architects Detail Studio and TSM Consulting.

The function centre would be built next to the recently completed changerooms and community gym, overlooking the oval and backing onto the golf course. Image: Meningie Community Sports Ground.

They will now begin seeking funding for the project, whose cost they estimated at $9.1 million.

Each club would maintain its independence at the new facility, and Coorong Cats footballers and netballers would continue to play their games across multiple venues.