The Roar
The Roar

Advertisement

Bulldogs flag some NRL games at Belmore

Roar Guru
12th February, 2012
5

Canterbury chief executive Todd Greenberg believes the Bulldogs can play NRL games at Belmore Sports Ground within the next five years.

Greenberg couldn’t hide his pleasure as a sell-out crowd of more than 10,000 crammed into the spiritual home of the club on Sunday to watch a trial match against the Sydney Roosters.

And while he admits it is not feasible for the ground to host games in the immediate future, he said the club was confident of it becoming possible with some more government funding.

As it stands, after their most recent upgrades of which $8.4 million came from state and federal governments, Belmore has 7000 seats and cannot accommodate more than 10,000 at the ground.

And with the Bulldogs anticipating 16,000 members in 2012, Greenberg argues they would require more seating to make the ground a viable option.

“Down the track, absolutely (regular season games could be played at Belmore),” Greenberg said.

“There are obvious restrictions but, if we can get some additional investment from the government to put a little bit more into the ground, then we could play one or two games a year here.

“And that is exactly what our plan would be.”

Advertisement

Part of that plan would be to move matches against lower-drawing clubs, such as North Queensland and Gold Coast, for the Belmore fixtures.

“We’re not going to play Parramatta, St George or the Wests Tigers here but you might play one of those clubs who you don’t draw those bigger numbers (against),” Greenberg said.

But Greenberg said there was no chance the Bulldogs would make a permanent move to Belmore.

“I’m not ever suggesting we’ll play all our games here,” he said.

“We are very accommodating to ANZ (Stadium), but one or two premiership games a year here would be great.

“(But) we can’t do that at the moment.”

close