I don't care how flat you make a pancake, it's always got two sides

The following is lifted from the Albany Athletics forum, which I posted a link to some time back. There's a information there I have not heard or read before; perhaps that is because I'm coming from the South point of view; perhaps it's because I'm being sold the South point of view, which may not necessarily resemble the truth. Maybe it's time to engage properly with the athletics people on some level, try and perhaps co-operatively figure out where the truth may be, if we're being played against one another, all that kind of hunkered down in the forum bunker conspiracy stuff which once started gets wickedly out of control. Maybe. Anyway, read what you will and enjoy.

Matthew Webster wrote:

I was at the AGM of Athletics Victoria the other night and during the General Discussion part of the evening, the move to Bob Jane Stadium was a hot topic. The move is one that has been instigated by the "Olympic Park Trust", the powers that control the sporting area, not apparantly from "Eddie McEverywhere". The main reason is that athletics does not attract enough interest through the year and does not generate enough money for the "Trust".
There has been $50,000 allocated in the State Budget to re furbish Olympic Park and to fix up the old South Melbourne Oval to a IAAF standard track. All of this is to be done by the start of the 2010 track season. I personally do not think that there is anywhere near enough money set aside to do it all and the time frame is a bit short to do it all in. "I supose, I will believe it when I see it!"

The old stand will be made into offices (the VAL I believe will be a co tenant)and somewhere there will be a 150m warm up track put down. The facilities will still have to be shared with the Soccer club for a short while but the athletics will have first choice of dates for any event. That is all that I can tell you at the moment from what I heard the other night, so if any of you have any better conpiracy theorys about the move, please share them with us, I could do with a good laugh :)

Guest :

very interesting Matthew - any talk about access and impact of the F1 GP given that the melbourne race has been extended for a cpl more yrs and it happens during the business end of the track and field season? going to make using the track in feb and march pretty difficult i would have thought

Matthew Webster
Dear Guest ( I wish that you people would use your real names)

There was talk of the interuptions from the Grand Prix event and we were told that it would have have minimal effect on the operations of the new stadium, although there will be a short period of time (two weeks I think) that the new stadium would be closed for the GP.
The timing of future GP events I think are for the latter part of March at this stage. This will not have much effect on the amateur side of things as their season should be over by that stage or nearly finished.

As for the guys & gals that use Olympic Park as their training base currently, they may have to move to another venue whilst this is going on and there are plenty of new surfaced tracks around Melbourne now. We have more "red" tracks in Victoria than a few of the other states combined.
If there are any more genuine questions that you wish to ask and I hope that I can answer them, let me know (hopefully with your real name).