Work to upgrade Railways Football and Sporting Club facilities starts after more than four years of planning

Long-awaited work to make the Railways Football and Sporting Club more accessible and welcoming has started. The first concrete footings for a new building at the northern end of the 50-year-old clubrooms were poured into place last week. The extension will house new male and female changerooms as well as better accessible facilities. RFSC vice-president Andrew Want said the original building would be refurbished to “tidy things” up. “That will happen over a period of time and we’ve started now with the first concrete pour on Thursday morning,” he said. “After four or five years of planning, it’s pretty exciting. “It’s been a long time raising money and getting caught up in all the other things that have got to happen, including a lot of red tape, but it’s been a great process.” The $1.1 million first stage of the club’s upgrade has been funded by a $300,000 contribution from the State Government, more than $315,000 from the City of Albany and about $370,000 raised by members. Historically Railways had been predominately a men’s football and cricket club, but it is now also home to a women’s football team as well as being a basketball and netball club. The club is also a base for the Albany Caledonian Football Club. Mr Want said he believed the existing clubroom facilities had been built in the mid to late 1970s and had not had much done to it “outside of putting a veranda on it and the odd small addition”. “It’s a wonderful club, but the facilities have become dated,” he said. “It’s just an opportunity to make it more comfortable and it’s been amazing opening our doors to a bigger section of the community.” He said the journey to reach this point had been amazing, as was the support from funding partners. Albany MLA Rebecca Stephens said the club had identified better access for people with disabilities and women in its plans to upgrade the facilities, so it was “really satisfying” to see works begin. “These works will take Railways from a facility where a curtain was once used to separate areas for privacy while changing to a much more modern and practical design,” she said. “The club has a growing membership with a lot of families using facilities and it caters to a range of sports, so it’s really pleasing to know those people can now enjoy greatly improved facilities.” Mr Want said he hoped most of the project’s early stages would be complete by the start of the 2024 football season because they wanted to “offer a good facility for a lot of people to use”.