FOR more than 45 years, Virginia United Football Club has used Danville Park as their home ground.
The football club said it has been trying to secure a long-term lease for the past two years from the city and are now embroiled in a battle with KZN Baseball, which has been told by the eThekwini Municipality to vacate Hoy Park to make way for a multi-million rand project.
One of the aggrieved Virginia United committee members, who did not want to be named, said the club was willing to share the grounds with the baseball federation, but not happy to lose two main fields.
“The situation is unacceptable. We are the biggest football club in KZN with teams from U6 to U17 (with three or four teams per age group) and two senior sides and a ladies’ team.
“We’ve put in more than R500 000 into the maintanence, repairs and upkeep of the grounds. There are plenty of other vacant sites KZN baseball could use, like the Durban drive-in. We have investors willing to pump in money, but the uncertainty over the club’s future is hampering a credible solution,” he said.
He added the club wanted to protect its interests.
If an agreement is reached, KZN Baseball has indicated that it would require the exclusive use of the one soccer field, which is closest to the clubhouse/changerooms, as this is the only area which can accommodate an international size baseball field, as well as share the smaller field with soccer as the second U18 baseball field, reducing the football club’s operations to three fields, from four.
