GROUNDS AND VENUES

Commenced playing on the Williamstown Cricket Ground at a time when the football club had only one team, moved to Gardens Reserve in 1910, which at that time still had a bike track around it.  Gardens Reserve was renamed Fearon Reserve in 1932, in honour of Captain Fearon and remains under that name today.  According to Arch Fowler the Club played one full senior season on the Williamstown Racecourse.

Other grounds that have been, and some still are, used by the Club include Gloucester Reserve, Hatt Reserve and Market Reserve in Williamstown and Digman Reserve in Newport where the Williamstown Deacons (The third senior team) played. The club also in the very early days played some games or at least trained at “Hannan’s Farm” near where the rifle range was located. Peter Hogg recalled that in 1962 as women’s lacrosse was starting, training for the Williamstown women’s team was held at what is now the Hatt Reserve, the only problem was that it wasn’t a very good ground and had a tree in the middle of it. As Peter recalled, “For some reason the small useless tree seemed to be vandalised one evening and died a few weeks later, and all of a sudden we had another ground!”

The clubrooms in the 1960s were in a grand stand north of the current clubrooms, which had a home changing room and a visitors changing room next door, with the same 2 style of rooms at the other end used by the Imperial Football Club and the Catholic Youth Football Club. The occupancy of the tennis club and courts came about in the early 1970’s. The tennis courts became the existing box court, which was also used for training during heavy winters.

Circa 1964 the nearby Rotunda was just a shell of a building, not being used and it was thought that it might come in handy for storage and committee rooms. The Council (There were a couple of ex-players on the Council) agreed that the Club could use the building. A working bee was held and a floor was added to make a room upstairs and windows put in. The Rotunda hasn’t been used by the club since the 1970s?

The Club’s current clubrooms at the Fearon Reserve were previously the rooms for the Esplanade Tennis Club. The lacrosse club took over these rooms as they outgrew the old rooms adjacent to the football clubs in the early 1970s. The occupancy of these rooms heralded an innovative era for lacrosse in Australia as in 1973 new box lacrosse courts were built enabling the Club to run a regular state-wide summer competition for many years.

The Canadian team that participated in the 1974 inaugural World Championship in Melbourne was billeted by the Williamstown, Footscray and Altona clubs and were asked to play an exhibition box lacrosse game on the courts. This was a great night and the billets of all the visiting players and their families attended.

The first Australian Box Lacrosse Championships were also held at Williamstown in 1978.

Another first for the club was in 1978 which saw the first ever televised highlights of the match of the day by the then ATVO (Channel 10) television channel. Williamstown won that match by 20 goals.