Soccer5s opens ‘best football centre in the world’ in Melbourne

Claiming to be the “best football centre in the world” five-a-side football centre operator Soccer5s has opened its second Australian centre in the Melbourne suburb of Dandenong.

Offering eight x five-a-side courts and two x seven-a-side courts, the new centre, which is already operating leagues, includes innovations developed based on Soccer5s experience of operating their first centre at Tuggerah on the NSW Central Coast – which opened in 2011.

Soccer5s Operations Director John Smith explains that the Dandenong location has been eight years in development, having been the first centre that the operator considered when entering the Australian market.

Smith explains “while we reckoned our first facility was the best in Australia, we have learned from its operations and reckon this new centre is the best football centre in the world ... it blows the socks off Tuggerah.”

The new centre features nets over the courts to ensure that the ball is never out-of-play, which Smith says “delivers constant action for players.”

It also features an improved cafe and bar area in a building that Smith says “makes an architectural statement.”

Soccer5s Dandenong is also set to serve a massive catchment area within South East Melbourne being located close to the EastLink motorway – with one million people within a 20 minute drive of the facility.

The centre is currently gearing up for a formal launch in anticipation of a massive enrolment of players and teams for competitions through the spring and summer.

In 2011, Soccer5s anticipated an emerging trend in Australian sport and leisure facility management, adapting a business model for five-a-side football centres in the United Kingdom that been highly successful over the past 15 years.

In 2011, the City of Greater Dandenong adopted a Soccer Hub Feasibility and Business Plan, developed by @leisure planners, to look into the development of a regional football (soccer) centre.

The new Soccer5s, while not backed by the City of Greater Dandenong, would appear to meet many of the requirements of that plan.

Click here to view the City of Greater Dandenong Soccer Hub Feasibility and Business Plan.

Images: Courts at the new centre (top) and promotional activity for the new centre at the Dandenong Plaza (below). Images courtesy of Facebook.

The potential of small sided football centres was explored in a feature in the September/October 2012 issue of Australasian Leisure Management.

25th September 2012 - FOOTBALLERS FLOCKING TO KNOX FOOTBALL FIVES

21st March 2012 - FIVE-A-SIDE FOOTBALL CENTRES OPEN IN NSW

10th June 2011 - SOCCER5S AUSTRALIA SET FOR CENTRAL COAST OPENING