Page 113 - History of Parkside Football Club (1897-2017) Editied Version Completed_optimized

Parkside Football Club 1897/2017

Herb Pascarl remembers that,

“In 1948 or 49, Parkside Football Club, with permission from Footscray Council built their first club
rooms. On the same place where our present pavilion is now were two long sheds used for Footstray
Park equipment and mowers. These two sheds were open on one side and faced each other, so
workers from Parkside Football Club set about modifying one of these sheds and with
weatherboards, concreting, plumbing, etc., myself, Ron Charles, Jack Considine and apprentices from
Vic Railways where I worked, with a lot of hard work, we managed to build our first club rooms which
were very good for those times with change rooms, toilets, showers, etc.

Unfortunately, we only used them for a few years because about 1951, the Club, under the then
President Mr. Harry Bryce, started what we called Footscray Boys or Youth Club of which the same
Mr. Harry Bryce was President and he insisted that the Boys Club ran the Parkside Football Club. This
the Parkside Football Club Committee would not agree to, and by the next season, the rooms were
given to the Boys Club.”

Parkside Boys’ Club

“With the idea of “bringing the best out of the boys of Footscray and making good citizens of them”
steps to form a Parkside Boys’ Club were taken at a meeting in the Anglers’ Hall in July, 1953. It was
emphasized that although the club would bear the name “Parkside” it would not be open only to
boys from the football club. The new club is accommodated at the Henry Turner Memorial Reserve.”

John Lack in his book, A History of Footscray writes that,

“Youth clubs were flourishing.. Stan D'Altera established the Yarraville Boys' Club during the war to
occupy lads whose parents were often absent on shift work, the Social and Educational Club bought
Trimble's Hall in 1947, and organised an extensive sports program for boys and girls: the Y.M.C.A.
Youth Centre opened at Kingsville in 1951: and six years' work by the West Footscray Recreational
League culminated in the establishment of the Youth Centre in Essex Street in 1953, the same year
that saw the Parkside Boys' Club established. Such groups and clubs catered for several thousand
young people by the mid-1950s, partly in an attempt to counter widespread vandalism.”

Lack, John, History of Footscray, North Melbourne Hargreen Publishing in conjunction with the City
of Footscray, 1991, p.343

Footscray Youth Club (today)

Once a Parksider, Always a Parksider