Waitakere City Athletic Club

Location

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This club caters for children of all ages and operates from October to March.

The Waitakere City Athletic Club was previously known as the Waitemata Athletic Club. The club was founded in 1953 by Mr George Searle after a public meeting at the Henderson Town Hall.

An enthusiastic and hard working committee under president Mr Rufus Gruebner raised many thousands of dollars from Friday night raffles in the Henderson Township and a highly successful Queen Carnival. This fund raising enabled the club to purchase land adjoining Ratanui Street in Henderson where the Pak’ N Save supermarket now stands and to build a multi purpose indoor sports stadium which was the first of its kind in West Auckland.

The Waitakere City (Waitemata) Athletic Club sold its land and building at Ratanui Street in Henderson for $700,000 and re-located to what is now the Waitakere Stadium. The $700,000 was used to build a modern multi-purpose sports stadium incorporating a 65 metre long, 6 lane, indoor rubberised athletic track, the first of its kind in New Zealand, plus a health and fitness centre and a large social area.

The stadium, which was built with much voluntary labour from club members and costing $1million, was officially opened in October 1983. In 1992 the club produced its first Olympian, 200 metre sprinter Cameron Taylor. The club had also become one of the strongest athletics clubs in New Zealand, consistently placing in the top three in the national track and field club championships and winning a national junior road relay title.

The club’s name was changed from the Waitemata Athletic Club to the Waitakere City Athletic Club in August 1994 after the Waitakere City Council had superseded the Waitemata City Council.

After this time the club started to come under increasing financial pressure with the stadium’s expenses exceeding income and it was also having difficulty retaining members. An amalgamation with the Te Atatu Rugby Club and the Waitemata Rugby Club became a priority.

Facilities:

The Waitakere City Athletic Club has the use of a $1,000,000 all weather athletics track at the Waitakere Stadium. It is one of the premier tracks in New Zealand. In addition the club recently purchased almost $200,000 worth of track and field equipment of top International standard. It now has the best facilities of any club in New Zealand.

The Waitakere City Athletics club offers modern facilties. Within the Trusts Stadium athletes have access to a 4 laned 60 metre indoor track, a strength and development weights room and can share the clubrooms bar, kitchen and dining area. The Douglas Track and Field is up to date with full electronic timing facilities being put in place and planning is underway for flood lighting of the field.

The Track and Field Facilities:

• Eight lane outdoor track
• Two high jump fans
• Two horizontal jump pits
• Two pole vault areas
• Two javelin runways
• Two competition shot circles
• Two competition discus circles
• Discus and shot training area

The Stadium Facilities:

The Trusts Stadium's main arena offers a 4900m2 pillar free space which is ideal for a broad range of large scale events, from trade shows and conventions to music concerts, corporate dinners and international sports events.

This makes the size and versatility of this space New Zealand's ultimate events and entertainment venue. The main arena is 38m wide and 125m long (4902m2).

The Sports Courts consist of 6 basketball, 6 netball, 8 volleyball and 12 badminton.

There are show court facilities for basketball, netball, volleyball, badminton, tennis, squash and many other sports events and exhibitions. The total installed seating in the stadium is 4901.

The Stadium has 382 sealed car parks on-site. There are an additional 1500 car parks within an easy walk of the stadium.

Additional event services are provided by The Trusts Stadium who can organise the following:

• event security
• audio-visual equipment
• catering (www.sero.co.nz)
• event personnel
• communications (phone, internet and EFTPOS)
• additional staging and fit-out equipment.