St George AFC celebrate history
Politicians and dignitaries mingled with AFL and Dragon stalwarts, supporters and workers inside the club for the opening of the extensions and refurbishments to the clubhouse dressing rooms.
This was part of the club’s vision to make the Olds Park facility ‘The Centre of Excellence’ for AFL in the southern part of Sydney. The prevailing wisdom was that if the club wanted to establish itself as a high performer on the field then the facilities off the field had to also be of a similar level.
On the Dragons’ Hill, the ex-players were celebrating the 20 year reunion of the 1993 Premiership side who had played North Shore in their Grand Final. Stories were being retold and anticipation was high to see how far the young Dragons had come in their development.
Of the 20 players who won that Premiership, 16 were local juniors and two of the other four played no football in Sydney other than with the St George Dragons. It was also interesting to note that there were five Dragons in attendance, two of whom were present players, one a player/coach and two former players who between them have won 17 Best and Fairest awards in first grade at St George.
On the field, the players were sampling the product of the new draining system and the levelled and returfed oval. In previous years the inclement weather would have certainly seen the matches cancelled but whilst the grass was wet there was sound footing for the Dragons to run out convincing winners in all three grades.
But this is not the end of the planned developments for the Club. There was a ground swell of support to get on with installation of lighting enabling night games to be played and also for terracing the hill in front of the clubhouse.
Of equal importance was the challenge from the 1993 premiership side for this present group of senior players to win another premiership for the club and establish their own tradition.