LAST Sunday the Newcastle Knights played the lowly-rated Wests Tigers at McDonald Jones Stadium in the featured NRL timeslot of 4pm.
There was quite a large crowd, as is usual in Newcastle.
Then, later that evening, the Newcastle NRLW team played their match at the same venue in front of an extremely reduced crowd.
I feel this time scheduling was a complete insult to the well-performing female team.
At worst, they should have been scheduled to play as a lead-up game to the 4pm match, giving them crowd numbers that they deserve.
Staying out late on a Sunday night in winter is not the most popular offering.
Richard Devon, Fishing Point
Thanks to a good samaritan
I'm a 78-year-old senior citizen. Whilst struggling to change a flat tyre in a shopping car park, several able younger males passed me by without even a glance. A mature lady sitting in her car offered to help but obviously was not physically able.
Then a beautiful young girl stopped and asked if I needed assistance and almost before I could answer she and her dad changed the tyre with a cheerful and encouraging demeanour. Thank you to that young lady and her dad from Aberglasslyn for your kindness and thoughtfulness.
You restored my faith in humanity.
Ray Leggett, Aberglasslyn
Gasworks site seems perfect fit
THE article last Saturday ("Residents rally to stop stadium project", Newcastle Herald, 12/8) and numerous other articles and letters to the editor on this topic have finally prompted me to write in myself.
The existing basketball stadium at Broadmeadow has served us well for many decades but is definitely overdue for replacement. Most citizens of Newcastle would agree with this view. However, the Wallarah and Blackley ovals behind Lambton High School are not the place to build it.
Apart from the fact that it will remove two playing fields, the area is subject to frequent flooding as it lies immediately along Lambton's Ker-Rai Creek. I'd expect that building a new stadium and parking area would first involve building the area up by at least 1200mm to ensure it is above flood level. By my calculations this would amount to about 100,000 cubic metres of fill and many millions of dollars even before the stadium is built.
I am a cyclist and I frequently ride along Clyde Street, where I see the old gasworks site that is already built up by 1000-1500mm above street level. It is also a very large and level site that could easily accommodate the new world-class basketball stadiums and large car parking area, and falls within the Broadmeadow sports precinct.
It can't be used for housing due to soil contamination from decades of gas production, but what a perfect place for a new community asset like a basketball stadium. Maybe the beautiful Fred Menken designed Gasworks building could also be repurposed.
Glenn Sullivan, New Lambton
Councillors missed at meeting
DUE to ongoing concerns about a lack of community consultation, the Save Our Lambton Ovals Group invited their elected representatives - state MP Sonia Hornery and the three Ward 3 councillors - to attend a meeting with residents last Saturday morning, August 10, at Blackley Oval in New Lambton. The group is campaigning to have the new basketball stadium built on a site other than Wallarah and Blackley Ovals in New Lambton.
Sonia Hornery, Ward 3 councillor Katrina Wark and candidates for the upcoming council election from the Independents, Greens and Socialist Alliance parties attended the meeting. Notably absent to me were the two Ward 3 Labor councillors, Cr Wood and Cr Winney-Baartz, who did not acknowledge their invitation to the meeting nor send their apologies. I'd say that the crowd at the meeting was disappointed, but sadly not surprised, by their absence.
It appears the two Labor councillors instead attended the Blackbutt Village Community Fun Day, five minutes away, on the same morning.
This event was organised and paid for by City of Newcastle council (aka ratepayers) to celebrate the "ongoing upgrade" of Blackbutt Village.
What council holds a celebration of an ongoing but unfinished upgrade? Are they celebrating it now because that's the end of the upgrade and they're not going to finish it?
Will council continue to spend their time and ratepayers' money to celebrate all community upgrades at various stages of development whether they are complete or not?
Chris Flower, New Lambton
Anzac pokies ban is a non-starter
WHAT a good politician is Alex Greenwich; ban poker machines on Anzac Day, what next? Ban Christmas Day and Easter in case it offends non Christians?
Geoff Pickin, Wallsend
We're not all Novocastrians
I TAKE issue with Andrew Whitbread-Brown's claim that most people living in the Lower Hunter regard themselves as Novocastrians ("Skate bowl sniping isn't needed", Letters, 13/8). I am so glad that I don't live in the City of Newcastle, hamstrung by a council mired in scandal and controversy. I have no strong desire to venture into the city of no parking. I am proud and pleased I live in Lake Macquarie and I think most people are equally proud of where they live. I am not a Novocastrian.
Daryll Hadfield, Redhead
Red faces over candidacy miss
"WE are the best managers of the economy and everything else so elect us," boasts the Liberal party that couldn't even manage to get their electoral nominations in before the closing date. Oops!
John Arnold, Anna Bay
Put the Greens in hot seat
It looks like we will have a government with limited power at the next election. Just for fun, and to make sure generations in the future never make the same mistake, let's all vote Green and make Adam Bandt our prime minister. Let the bull in the China shop loose. Seriously, give them what I reckon they don't want; responsibility.
Steve Barnett, Fingal Bay
Our leaders fail to inspire
SADLY I was, by misfortune, forced to watch Question Time on TV. What a bunch of rude, insolent fools we have to look after our affairs. I had a very deep and long think about those that we choose to do our bidding. I am starting to believe that these people have no right to ask questions or censor their conduct, and lack the ability to look after our interests.
