Sports clubs run for cover as criminals hold sway in Lahee Park

AMONG the many stories on various subjects which we carry each week, one which angered many was the report on the relocation of the Pinetown Rugby Club.

How sad that after 83 years at the Lahee Park sports grounds, crime and vandalism drove this club out of its home.

The rugby teams now practice and meet at the Ashley sports fields, leaving their “historic” little clubhouse to the prostitutes and their clients, car thieves, and the party people who braai and drink, in public, without any thought that they could be arrested for breaking the law. Broken glass littered the field and each game and practice session was preceded by searching the fields for lurking shards.

Before the rugby club took the painful decision to leave its traditional home, the hockey club moved out and the Athletics people joined the bowling club at its clubhouse. The tennis pavilion was abandoned some years ago and was later taken over by a cycling club.

The cricket club, founded in 1873, is the oldest of its kind in KwaZulu-Natal and possibly in South Africa. It still hangs on gallantly to its stake in Lahee Park, as does the gymnasium and bowls club.

Soccer had a home on Anderson fields but these have been lying fallow for years. There were once squash courts too and the swimming pool is almost hallowed ground having shaped the likes of our Olympian Chad Le Clos and with connections to Princess Charlene.

Attempting to find any pertinent history on Lahee Park is a fruitless task so this may not be verified, but the common understanding among older residents of Pinetown is that Lahee Park was once farmland which was donated to the people of Pinetown by the Lahee family as a sports facility. According to common perception the municipality may not use the land for any other purpose but that for which it was donated – sport.

In its glory days, the park was always packed with people at weekends and in the evening as people practiced various sports or played league games. Spectators brought their camp chairs and cooler boxes while other people simply walked their dogs on the expansive lawns.

That is gone. The park is now the preserve of those who inhabit Pinetown’s dark underbelly and it is a dangerous place to venture alone.

As the park is under the curatorship of the eThekwini Municipality, one would think that some care would be taken of this wonderful asset particularly as we are hoping to host the Commonwealth Games.

If some attention were paid to the fields and the club houses, many now the hangout of vagrants and drug addicts, Pinetown could host a number of teams wanting practice grounds, as could the swimming pool. It would also save some of the astronomical costs we will incur. Interestingly we can’t afford to host Top Gear this year, but we can afford the Commonwealth Games.

But before we consider hosting the world, the police need to have a presence in Lahee Park and fines need to be given for people drinking, smashing bottles and using the sports field as areas for washing cars and taxis.

Sorry to be cynical, but perhaps the neglect is a deliberate ploy to force the sports clubs to vacate the park for safer pastures so this wonderful land in the centre of town can be used for development – a Go! Durban, fast transit bus terminus perhaps? Just a thought.