The club was awarded a total $4500 in costs from Bay of Plenty District Rugby League.<\/p>\n
Several former members, however, started a new club, Central Pride, in 2019. It now caters for junior, rangatahi and senior rugby league.<\/p>\n
Central Pride\u2019s desire to use the traditional home at Linton Park East Reserve remains unfulfilled, however, with the clubhouse essentially abandoned.<\/p>\n
Central Pride president Jason Walker wants answers from Rotorua Lakes Council, which owns the surrounding reserve.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt should be sorted after all this time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just seems like a waste to let the building sit there and deteriorate, possibly to the point it has to be knocked over.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the club had businesses ready to help fix up the building, which he believed could become \u201ca hub for the community\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor a lot of younger men, being involved gives them a way to get away from difficult backgrounds, to let out frustrations and talk things through with others.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ernie Walker played senior rugby league until he was 70 and is a former president of the original club.<\/p>\n
He believes Central Pride should have the clubhouse.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to be back in there, get it up and running, and make this a viable place to help kids who are roaming the streets get into sports,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Walker continues to monitor his old stomping ground and even claimed to have twice ejected squatters after a \u201clittle rumble\u201d. <\/p>\n
Central’s clubhouse at Linton Park East Reserve. Photo \/ Mathew Nash<\/p>\n
Club\u2019s dissolution revoked<\/p>\n
Central Rugby League Club was dissolved by the Registrar of Incorporated Societies in May 2023 after a period of inactivity. <\/p>\n
This dissolution was revoked this month after the club provided financial statements from 2021 to 2024 as evidence of ongoing operations. <\/p>\n
The registrar said this was sufficient to show that the club \u201cwas carrying on its operations\u201d when it dissolved.<\/p>\n
Walker was surprised to hear that. He said the original club had not fielded a team since 2017-18 and had sold off much of its kitchen appliances, training gear and bar equipment in a September 2021 auction. <\/p>\n
The auction raised $16,732, according to financial statements filed by Central. <\/p>\n
Walker has had numerous interactions with Rotorua Lakes Council, including with Mayor Tania Tapsell. <\/p>\n
Jason Walker (left) and Ernie Walker (second from right) have been leading the charge to return the clubhouse to use.<\/p>\n
This included a proposal in 2024 to resurrect the clubhouse to be a \u201cthriving marae and community hub\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said the process had been \u201cbloody hopeless\u201d.<\/p>\n
He doubted the chances of reconciliation with the original club\u2019s current leadership and believed it was up to the council to \u201csort it out\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m getting a bit past it now, and I had my day,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I want to make sure the clubhouse is there for the community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tapsell said she had been contacted a \u201cfew times\u201d by club members. She \u201cencouraged\u201d them to continue engagement, but said legal processes had blocked progress.<\/p>\n
She hoped these could be resolved and the clubhouse used again \u201cas soon as possible\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cSports and access to appropriate facilities is really important for our community, and council will keep supporting opportunities for this across our district.\u201d<\/p>\n
Central Pride now caters for youth, junior and senior rugby league.<\/p>\n
Legal proceedings continue<\/p>\n
Kerry Mason was the president of Central Rugby League Club when it was suspended. <\/p>\n
He resigned in 2019 but is now listed as the club\u2019s treasurer in recently filed financial documents. <\/p>\n
These show total assets of more than $130,000 against bank debt of $10,758, $27,430 in liabilities including unpaid rates and loans, and a reduction in the value of its land and buildings from $281,000 to $100,000 over six years. <\/p>\n
In a statement provided to Local Democracy Reporting, Mason said the council had \u201cbled the club dry\u201d with rates, building warrants and other licensing costs, as well as disputed penalties.<\/p>\n
He said the clubhouse front door and windows had been broken in the past two months.<\/p>\n
Former Central Rugby League Club president Kerry Mason inside the clubhouse in 2015. Photo \/ Ben Fraser<\/p>\n
Requests to the council for improved lighting to help prevent such damage had gone unanswered, he said. <\/p>\n
He did not comment on plans for the clubhouse, the future of the club or the impact on the community. <\/p>\n
Council community experience group manager Alex Wilson told Local Democracy Reporting that the building\u2019s future was the subject of continuing legal proceedings.<\/p>\n
\u201cUntil this is completed, we are unable to take any steps or make decisions regarding the building, or comment on individual parties or potential future arrangements.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said the reserve continued to be maintained by the council, while steps had also been taken to \u201csecure the building\u201d while unoccupied.<\/p>\n
The Bay of Plenty District Rugby League was approached for comment.<\/p>\n
Mathew Nash is a Local Democracy Reporting journalist based at the Rotorua Daily Post. He has previously written for SunLive, been a regular contributor to RNZ and was a football reporter in the UK for eight years.<\/p>\n
– LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The club was awarded a total $4500 in costs from Bay of Plenty District Rugby League. Several former…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308414,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[31389,534,1559,18836,115318,5205,10113,78,168308,14731,7973,80652,111,139,69,1527,1327,6327,168307,213,5273],"class_list":["post-308413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-abandoned","tag-amid","tag-called","tag-club","tag-clubhouse","tag-council","tag-feud","tag-in","tag-interclub","tag-league","tag-leaves","tag-limbo","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-return","tag-rotorua","tag-rugby","tag-sevenyear","tag-sports","tag-wait"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308413\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}