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TIGERS CLUB NEWS ARCHIVE
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Margaret Donoghoe Oval lake!
Tuesday, 14th December 2004
The Tigers Home Ground was developed in the late seventies after a proposal
was forwarded to the Queanbeyan City Council by the Clubs then President
Len Peterson in 1972.
 Peterson
arrived in Queanbeyan in 1971 from Western Australian and found the Club
in a desperate situation. With more or less no committee, very little
community support and lacking numbers both off the field in officials
and on the field in player quality, he became the Tigers Reserve Grade
Coach and President within a year of his involvement.
In addition the small venue of the Queanbeyan Park – the Tigers
home ground since the late thirties - was being scorned by the then named
Canberra Australian Football League for its lack of facilities.
Although Peterson submitted the proposed building of a new ground in
South Queanbeyan (which would eventually become a showpiece arena for
Australian Football in the area), he had left the area to live in Queensland
by the time approval had been gained for its development.
Now some 22 years after its opening - the Tigers home ground - named
“the Margaret Donoghoe Sportsground” after a prominent former
Alderman of the Queanbeyan City Council plays host to many and varied
activities during any one year.
It does however serve another purpose and that is - it is a retention
basin for the overflow of water (after heavy rains) from the nearby residential
area of Karabar, Thorntons Estate and Cooks Estate.
 On
a number of occasions the ground becomes flooded as the water is retained
by a stone like dam wall at one end of the ground which eventually dissipates
water slowly into a complicated drainage system under the surface of the
ground.
Pictured are scenes of the ground underwater on 2 November 2004 after
a torrential downpour of rain in the area. It took just minutes for the
ground to be flooded. Although competition games have not been affected
by this unusual occurrence there was an instance at the commencement of
the 2003 season whereby the ground was closed on the eve of the Preseason
Competition Opening matches when the ground flooded - much to the dismay
of the players attending training on the Friday night.
The grounds floods so quickly there is little time to move items from
the ground and in one particular flooding in the early eighties a number
of players who had parked their cars in the ground close to the Grandstand
saw them underwater within minutes of the downpour and subsequently were
removed by tow trucks.
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