Celebrating 50 Years of the Whyalla Recreation Centre

Fifty years ago, a regional city built something that lasted.

The Whyalla Recreation Centre opened on 2 May 1976. It cost $1.5 million to build, a figure that looks modest beside the $40 million-plus price tag of a comparable facility today. It was built not for elites or athletes, but for everybody. The centre's first director, Mac Smith, said so at the opening. “The facility”, he told the crowd, “Belongs to the citizens of Whyalla and is there for everybody."

That investment is still paying off. The centre now draws more than 140,000 visits a year, carries over 1,500 members and swim school students, and runs over 30 group fitness classes each week. In a regional city of roughly 20,000 people, those are not incidental numbers.

The original $1.5 million complex included a sports hall capable of hosting more than a dozen sports, a heated swimming pool, squash courts, a gymnasium, an activities room, and a coffee bar. The demand was there before the doors even opened. Gymnastics classes, newly open to children as young as four, drew more than 226 enrolments within a fortnight. Pool management positions attracted 312 applications for just 11 roles.

Whyalla has changed considerably since 1976. The steelworks that anchored the city's identity for much of the twentieth century has faced repeated uncertainty. But through all of it, the centre has remained a constant.

To mark the anniversary, the centre held a free community day. A pool inflatable, a jumpy castle, Play Café, and six group fitness classes running back to back from 8:15am, led by Venice, Kseniya, Matt, Danna, Jaana, and Angela. No entry fee. Just the city turning up, the way it did fifty years ago.

"Mac said this place belongs to everybody," Centre Manager James Adair said. "Fifty years of people showing up every day, I'd say Whyalla took him at his word."