Years of degradation

Putting a wall around it doesn’t make the problem go away, it just hides it.
The problem being the condition Puma Stadium is currently in.

Approaching the stadium from Jellicoe Street one would see the cement palisade walling but as you drive down the street you are forced to reduce your speed to a crawl thanks to the numerous large potholes throughout the road. In addition to this there seems to be a water leak from the second field’s pavilion and this adds to the erosion of the road.

The tennis courts have long been abandoned, the fencing is damaged and all but the kitchen sink has been stolen from the tennis club, including the piping. This has resulted in a flow of unchecked water coming from the club house running down towards the tennis courts – and all this with water restrictions in place by the Municipality, the very body that owns and is charged with maintaining the stadium.

The signage and walling has been broken down at the stadium.

Numerous potholes riddle the roads to and from the stadium.

Continuing on towards the actual stadium if you turn right toward the cricket field you will notice that the cricket club is now a barren husk, the roofing is gone, windows are broken and everything of value have been ransacked.
Over all the condition of the stadium has fallen dismally, both the tennis and cricket club houses are being used by drug users seeking shelter to feed their addiction.
But what is to be done, is there hope for the restoration of the stadium or is it something of the past that should be just forgotten?

Water spews from the abandoned tennis courts, which have been left unchecked.

The cricket club house has deteriorated beyond recovery.

Sure there is a municipal budget allocated to maintaining municipal owned buildings, but if there has been no improvement then the question lies, where is all this funding going to?

We posted the question, ‘is there hope for the stadium’ to social media and the responses indicate that the stadium is better left alone to continue to degrade as the pride in keeping it running no longer exists, additionally residents feel that the municipality should rather focus on helping those affected by Highveld Steel & Vanadium’s closure, or toward building additional infrastructure.

“We need to establish control and access to the sports grounds, no other municipality in South Africa runs like that, look at other sports grounds they are being maintained, there is no maintenance being done here,” said Mr Sarel van Heerden, Club Captain, Witbank Golf Club.

He went on to say that people pay rates and taxes and this should go toward maintaining the grounds and believes that they need to take hands and take the road forward to bring the stadium and grounds back to its former glory.