St Kilda might commence a new campaign at Etihad Stadium on Saturday, but the club also marked another significant milestone at Moorabbin on Friday, with the first wall knocked down ahead of the redevelopment.
After overcoming a number of hurdles, demolition at the venue, which will be known as RSEA Park, officially began the day before Round 1, with champion forward Nick Riewoldt on hand to bang the first hole in the wall.
St Kilda Chief Executive Officer Matt Finnis cherished the occasion at a packed media conference, saying it will be great for the club to foster the spirit of Moorabbin with the future generations of Saints players and supporters.
“It’s a great occasion to be finally able to start the demolition on some clearly dilapidated, outdated facilities. In fact, it’s hard to believe that in so recent past the guys were still managing to train in these facilities,” Finnis said at a press conference on Friday.
“The fact that we’re (the Round 1 squad) here this morning demonstrates how much love our players still have to do their captain’s run here once a week.
“It’s the stories, it’s those intangibles parts of Moorabbin that Nick and Leigh and some of the guys of the past have passed on from generations which continue to make this place a very special and loved place for all St Kilda fans.
“We look forward to marking that occasion this morning.”
Finnis said the Saints are scheduled to relocate from Seaford to the new training and administration headquarters during next pre-season if the project remains on time.
“If all goes to plan … we'd like to think that the first stage of the redevelopment will allow the players and coaches to be back operating out of here in our pre-season very early next year,” Finnis said.
“We'll continue to build out our facilities for community football to be able to take advantage of those a bit later on in 2018.”
