Despite Balmain & District Football Club being the largest community sports club in the Inner West, as well as the largest community football club in Australia, we don’t have access to a Clubhouse or an all-weather field. In 2026, that’s set to change with major infrastructure projects underway in Callan Park.
One of the greatest challenges we face is providing sufficient training and playing fields for our members in our local area. While wet weather has dominated the winter seasons since 2022, it’s the intensity of usage that has seen local fields – particularly those at Waterfront in Callan Park – suffer the most.
The adaptive reuse of Building 497 and the upgrade of Field 2 at Waterfront to a state-of-the-art all-weather surface, will see our home ground transformed into a modern community sports facility. Details of both projects are set out below. Through the support of our community, the NSW Government via the Office of Sport and Greater Sydney Parklands, as well as Mayor Darcy Byrne and the Inner West Council, these two critical infrastructure projects will help revitalise and breath new life into Callan Park.
New BDFC Clubhouse
The NSW Government, through Greater Sydney Parklands, is currently pursuing its plans for activating and upgrading Callan Park, which has been our heartland for over 55 years.
Following a successful tender for the lease of Repatriation Ward B, also known as Building 497 (B497), our club secured $1.8M grant funding from the NSW Office of Sport to support adaptive reuse of B497 as the BDFC Clubhouse and community sports facility.
Our club has been collaborating with GSP to fund and finalise plans for the refurbishment of the building. After an additional injection of $1.2M by Inner West Council, works are expected to start on site early in 2026.
The development of Building 497 as a clubhouse will enable BDFC to transition out of the pavilion/grandstand – a building which is long overdue for removal, opening up views across the Waterfront fields to the new green space established on the site of the old Veteran’s Oval.
It’s a wonderful opportunity to finally improve this area of Callan Park, saving and repurposing one of the many derelict buildings in Callan Park, creating a large canteen, storage areas, meeting spaces and modern, accessible toilet facilities and changerooms.
Waterfront All-Weather Field Upgrade
With over 1,000 players using the fields each weekend during winter, along with hundreds of players training Tuesday to Friday each week, the Waterfront fields have been unable to withstand the extremely high levels of usage.
Since 2022, a run of wet seasons along with increased participation numbers – particularly amongst girls and women – has seen the fields at Waterfront deteriorate earlier in the season each year, to the point where they are regularly closed for training and games.
After extensive consultation with the wider Inner West community in 2024 and 2025, the Inner West Council decided to proceed with upgrading two fields in Callan Park: one field at Waterfront and one field at Balmain Road – replacing the existing surface with best-practice all-weather fields with organic infill.
Full details of the new field designs and accompanying expert reports are available here.
Rozelle Parklands Playing Fields
In July 2025 – almost 18 months after the NSW Government completed the construction of the playing fields – the old Rozelle Railyards site was finally handed back to the community.
The new fields at the former WestConnex works site in Rozelle, across the road from our Easton Park field, include a floodlit rectangular football field and an oval. It was an important step forward in helping to tackle our club’s acute lack of playing and training space.
Shared with Leichhardt Saints Football Club, it’s given BDFC summer access to a full-size football field for the first time in our history! It will be fully utilised for winter training and games.