SUNSHINE Heights has survived its first two years in WRFL’s division one. Now is the time to aim for more than just survival.

Club president Vince Sposato said his club deserved to be in the top grade, and the redevelopment of the club’s headquarters at Ainsworth Reserve will make the Dragons look like a top grade club.

It’s an exciting new chapter for the club, which has worked tirelessly to get promoted to the first division of the WRFL, and even harder to secure the $1.2 million in funding from Brimbank Council to upgrade the club’s facilities.

The club will have two new changerooms, a medical room and the oval will be resurfaced with drought-proof grass. The car park will be sealed and toilets and showers will be installed in the social rooms.

That means the club will move to Balmoral Park in Derrimut for a year. Sposato has urged the club’s supporters to get behind the Dragons as they temporarily move to a new home.

“It’s going to be a pain for a year, but it’s going to be a lot of gain in the future, and we just want our supporters and members to keep supporting the club and keep turning up even though we are going 3km up the road,” Sposato said.

“We’re very excited about this because we’ve been wanting these plans to go ahead and some people having working there for 30 years, so to finally get funding for $1.2 million to upgrade our ground, we’re very exited.

“The facilities next year will be 40 years old. We badly needed new renovations… and the ground probably hasn’t been touched in the last 20 years. And the car park is just gravel.”

Sposato said the club needed a facelift to grow – to attract more players and become the successful, self-sustaining club it has worked so hard to be.

“We’re looking to grow our juniors in under 10s right up to under 18s,” Sposato said.

Sposato said the club aims at the very least to field a junior team in each grade, but would like top see multiple Dragons sides in each junior grade.

The club also hopes to become affiliated with Auskick by 2012, when it moves back to Ainsworth Reserve.

“It’s about bringing kids into the football club and growing the football club through our youth. I just want to urge juniors to come out and play footy for a bit of fun. Anyone’s welcome, doesn’t matter what culture they are,” Sposato said.

Aside from the fun factor, the club hopes its best junior players will eventually become the club’s key senior players.

“I’m quite confident that in a couple of years time we’ll be up there. We’re only battlers, we’re a small little club, but we’ve worked very hard over the last four years.

“I think we belong in division one as a football club, we work hard to stay in division one. Myself and the committee are working very hard to make sure that happens.”