Vancouver Field Conditions & Paying for the Building of them?

[coachrich]

I'd like to get some candid but constructive feedback on the status of field conditions in Vancouver. I'm sure everyone in Vancouver can go to town on this one so go for it!!!! -

1. Yes, it would be great to have 12 - 16 AT's but what do you think about what you have now? How bad are they?

2. How do you feel about having to raise or look for funds & investment opportunities to build field that should be paid by your tax dollars?

3. How do you feel about renting fields based upon a field standard safety & quality surface.

4. How do you feel about "youth comes first" or youth gets prime time access.

5. How do you feel about gender equity? Males play Sat & Females play Sun.

6. Addittional comments

7. If you are willing to volunteer time to get better fields in Vancouver Email me.

I'm sure everyone in Vancouver can go to town on this one so go for it!!!!

 

[Regs]

CR,

Regarding point #4... to an extent, youth must come first just based on sheer numbers and the political slant that comes with catering to this group by the municipalities.

However, I've always wondered why the senior leagues have not had a field or 2 in every area designated for Senior soccer only.

Granted, everything is always going to come down to the almighty dollar but there has to be some common ground somewhere that allows a field to exsist as a showcase to the community.

Kinsmen 'stadium' in North Van is the closest I can think of that fits this idea though it has taken a bit of a downturn over the last 10 years or so with football and youth games being played on it.

Cheers,

~Regswhowillendthisramblinghere.

 

[coachrich]

Actually not all municipalities have a youth first policy. North Shore being one. Although it may be a political slant it's the easiest way to get better fields as the public is emotional towards youth but not adults when it comes to tax dollars.

Depends what you mean by area? I would say that the issue is generally a lack of the number of playable fields. In Vancouver Westside has Hillcrest. Hopefully that will not change but w/ VPB & COV not putting more than $500k into the maintainence of 125 fields, youth will slowly take over primetime if AT's aren't built.

Like in Richmond, Seniors need to support youth in getting AT's in Vancouver & elsewhere. If the soccer community speaks w/ 1 voice w/ a proposal that makes sense than other field users will buy into it then everyone will benefit. Becasue of numbers soccer will always get their lions share of field time but the fields have to be efficient for more than 3 games a day.

Vancouver w/ 10,000 (7,300 youth) soccer players for the normal season is really paying the price as they have the worse record of field closures in the GVRD. Even on a good weekend 30% of their inventory is not useable. Other places like Richmond & Burnaby are paying a price too as those areas that are AT field rich are subisidizing girls youth soccer when the grass / gravel rule is invoked.

Yep you're right that soccer needs a central venue. Vancouver needs a tournament complex but the problem is going to be dollars first like you said. Then finding a big chunk of park land. Marpole in Vancouver would be the best as it's got some lights & would be a good place to do sometiing like Boyd in Richmond.

IMO & sadly getting a Stadium in Vancouver will never happen as the window is closed so using the Whitecaps new stadium will be the best bet.

When you look at the money being spent on other sports in Vancouver, soccer & other fields users have been ripped off. Just on hockey rinks in Vancouver since 2003, the COV has spent $50 million but there are only 5,000or so ice hockey players yet there are 10,000 soccer players & another 40,000 other field users for a total of 50,000. Soccer & other field users got to speak up as 1 voice & ask for their share of the tax dollar.

 

[Regs]

By area I meant, well, just that - area

Vancouver, Burnaby, Richmond, Coquitlam, Surrey, North Vancouver, etc. are the boundaries I'm speaking of.

It should not be a difficult task to pick one or 2 fields in each area and designate it 'senior use only' and then let the leagues work with the municipalities in scheduling use. Create a sponsorship program with businesses for these fields to help offset costs in maintaining them properly.

Senior soccer IMO do not need new fields, just better upkeep of the ones we currently are allowed to play on.

Oh, and don't get me started on turf fields... a properly maintained grass field wins over a turf field anyday.

Cheers,

~Regs.

 

[coachrich]

Sorry Regs, pretty tall order to have Senior only fields as most cities except maybe NS have youth first. Also, everyone has been looking at the Richmond paid model so everyone is going to have to pay user fees & field rentals to get what they want but the majority of funding will go into AT's as you get the 60% more usage vs maybe 3 - 0 game on sand celled. Also, sand celled is way more expensive to maintain than AT's

Richmond Seniors are getting some good sand celled time for their use but Richmond is field rich but youth still gets priority if the weather changes. Until areas have fields coming out of their ears thats the way it will be.

Richmond Seniors use a lot of the sand celled for games but practice on the AT's. Richmond Youth use AT's all the time except the youngest 11 aside who use sand celled when the weather is good.

Richmond is a full paid model where clubs & teams pay a user fee at the beginning of the season & then for field rental. This is why they have the facilities they have & get 2 new AT's each year. Richmond's plan is to keep & maintain the best sand celled for seniors & tournament play as they are the best to play on. Also, statisticially they have the lowest field related injury rate for Seniors who have the majority of insurance claims.

In our latest meeting on Vancouver fields we pointed this out to our committee as for some reason Seniors want to play on the AT's which is not what is happening in Richmond & goes against insurance claim stats where AT's are not as forgiving for Seniors as Youth. Hopefully as youth gets more AT's in Vancouver (we are asking for 16) Seniors can have the sand celled & there should be more maintainence money to keep the sand celled in shape as they aren't maintained in Vancouver as there is a $4000 maintainence cost per field & you just can't maintain 125 fields w/ $500k. Hence Vancouver is the worse area for fields especially per capita.

 

[trece verde]

coachrich:

One of these years when the VFSF stops having meetings on Wednesday nights I will get out for a few more of them, like I did previously.

In the meantime, here's a bit more information for you:

1) While Vancouver is not the oldest municipality in this area, it was the first to be heavily populated. As a result, guess how parks were designated? Usually parks were the left-over areas that nobody wanted to build on, because of the ground conditions being unsuitable to put foundations on. This is of course, the same reason that also makes them unsuitable to be used for playing fields without a lot of extra work. It's also why we can't properly compare our mudpits to the purpose-built fields in the suburbs...

2) Vancouver (the city) is the most densely-populated municipality in the country according to last year's census. Guess what that means? The cost of acquiring land for new playing fields not part of present parks is prohibitively expensive, especially as you head towards downtown. Think also of the financial pressure on the Parks Board; dealing with the cost of the Olympics and Stanley Park and keeping that nice pricey real estate as parks when it could be worth how much to a developer? Anybody remember the price of land in this city dropping over the last 20 years? Didn't think so...

3) Because of a combination of reasons, playing fields in Vancouver have suffered from both benign and non-benign neglect. This was most noticeable over the 80s and 90s, and the reasons include lack of maintenance due to neglect or lack of funding, the NIMBY attitudes of special interest groups, lack of interest by field users, and a number of other ridiculous causes like the concept of "passive park space." Look at the numbskulls who lost us lights and AT at Hastings Bowl because of the fear of a noise level that would never even come close to what's currently produced by traffic on Cassiar. Look at what's happening with the Whitecaps' stadium.

4) There is a philosophical problem in the Parks Board with the insistence that parks and thus, the fields they contain, are a neighbourhood resource. As anybody who has played in an organized league can tell you, we don't just play in our own neighbourhoods. We travel. Our leagues span multiple cities, as do most of our teams. People move. The same group of kids that you grew up with as a local youth team that stayed together and still play as adults don't all live in the same area anymore. I have players on my own team scattered from the North shore to White Rock and Coquitlam, and that's pretty typical. We have to find a way to convince the bureaucrats that our parks and especially our playing fields are regional resources, just like Burnaby's are.

Not sure if you actually still play yourself or not, but the biggest reason we as senior players in Vancouver want to play on new AT fields is that we're tired of playing in the mud; tired of only being able to play once every 3 weeks due to weather closures; tired of having to practice on gravel; tired of stupidities like fields with manhole covers in them or craters caused by sunken sprinkler heads or overhanging branches that prevent you from taking corners from one side of a field... Need I go on? Basically we just want some consistency, and that seems to be the best way to get it.

Regs' idea of designated fields will also never happen in Vancouver. There just aren't enough to go around for any one group to have a monopoly on a park, either for youth or senior clubs. Westside doesn't have Hillcrest; they share the park with the KLM and Douglas Park youth clubs, and with anybody else that the respective league schedulers deem needs a field to play a game on.

As I've mentioned previously on here, Vancouver's intentions currently are to have the VanTech AT field ready for play in October, which will give us an inventory of two realistically usable AT fields. Yes, I know that teams play on Hamber, but its primary purpose and intent is for field hockey. Livingstone is unusable and will likely not be rebuilt within the next 5 years as those in charge are too busy dithering about it and wishing it would go away or finish sinking back into False Creek. Trillium Park is still just a proposal, and one which isn't going anywhere without a huge lobbying effort from the soccer community, and any other potential locations for AT fields are still only at the dreaming stage.

Enough ranting for one morning. Coachrich has good ideas, but more than one person has to act upon them.

Trece

 

[crnogorski fudbaler]

Why not do what they do in australia.They build a clubhouse with a field.Gather up sponsors and have boards up around the field with sponsors names .....I think you could probably round-up alot of sponsors with the right prices..........I think that bby lake might be a good place to start.just a thought......

 

[coachrich]

Trece Verde, I would suggest that you talk it up in the Seniors as we have asked the MWSL Rep & Westside Rep to do that.

As a group organize the Seniors in Vancovuer to get involved & to speak as 1 voice as 7300 youth are. The bigger the crowd the more input & political voice we have. Espeically when the Chair of VPB Ian Robertson & Suzanne Anton are from the soccer community & who where funded & campagined by the soccer community into their positions.

Why should a sport like ice hockey w/ 5000 reg'ed users get $50 million since 2003. Regardless of the COV coming into the Olympic years those are your tax dollars.

1 & 2. We are going to be shifting VPB, COV & VSB to build on existing fields like gravel that already have lights on them. Then look at other areas where fields can be built fast.

Richmond is under 6 meters of water on a delta & they build AT's for just over $1 million whereas Van spends an extra $500K on geotech. Why?

Why not maintainence money & better fields has to do w/ the soccer & VFSF not making valid asks, understanding where the roadblocks are in the VPB, COV & VSB.

Also, if we VFSF members don't ask as 1 voice, get creative & apply political pressure for equality in taxation we get nowhere. There are 10,000 soccer players & another 40,000 users in the VFSF how w/ their numbers are a huge voice.

3. You are right about no maintainence as VPB only gets less than $500K for soccer fields but add in diamonds & etc so you get about 275 parks.

Hastings park would have been great but as a group did we lobby? No.

You tone sounds like the rest of the VFSF of where everyone has been beaten in apathy. Time to shift gears & ask if not fight for equality in taxation as we have the numbers but need to be as 1 group. That is where we are pointing the VFSF as it's to everyones benefit.

4. Yes, youth comes first for primetime, yes local youth get priority for local fields first & yes there is gender equity policies in the VPB. BUT through our efforts the VPB understands that youth soccer in league games is schedule by the Districts & teams play everywhere so they leave it up to us.

Yes, I understand the issues w/ closed fields as I grew up in Kits, live in Kits & played for Legion 142 in V&D back in the 60's. The fields in Van are basically the same fields except there are some sand celled fields now. See attached but notice the lack of funds to maintain them.

Hillcrest for the VRGSA (girls) only has Dinsmont on Sunday & the other fields go to Seniors. VRGSA gives the field to Metro first than KLM for games. DP gets no time there as they play games everywhere as their field goes to Metro as well & the Mini & Micro stays at DP. They practice down at Andy
This is a problem w/in the VRGSA of which the above policy should chance but youth will move to AT's first for the primetime.

We are meeting on Andy's surface next Wed & will probably go w/ the soccer / field hockey new Field Turf that is out as Andy is a replacement project not a new field so VPB & COV will be reminded of that. Field Hockey accepts that they are only 1/7 the size of soccer so keeping Andy we make them happy so other fields sports can like soccer can get what they want done elsewhere.

Yep, Trillium & all other proposals are great but the COV still has to give the VPB the money. Hence time for all of use to get off our butts & work together to get things done. Especially Seniors as I pointed out elsewhere there are some many teams that it's really hard to get them to come together yet youth w/ only 2 districts are already together. IMO Seniors need to organize into districts at least to deal w/ their local governments & their leagues. To do it on a team basis is too hard to organize & get consenus.

Like you said "more than one person has to act upon them" & that's why I'm writing here as I see here at TTP & hear in the community that Seniors are unhappy w/ things. I hope that by writing, getting people to talk & see what is going on that people in the senior leagues will rally. If not, as a non participate group you will get what you don't ask for.

I would ask that those teams that are interested in moving things ahead for Seniors to contact the MWSL Rep & Westside Rep to get involved.

If other areas can get what they what in the why of fields so can we in Vancouver but we have to ask & if that doesn't get what we want we go political in the public as it's our tax dollars we are not seeing equally when compared to other sports user groups.