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National

Brisbane sporting clubs face massive repair bills, months of disruption after flood event

Damaged articial turf soccer fields at Mitchelton Football Club, in Everton Park. (Facebook: Mitchelton Football Club)

A wave of water has washed over local sporting clubs, while others remain swamped after Brisbane's flood emergency.

Mitchelton Football Club was engulfed by flood waters from Kedron Brook in Everton Park.

The waters have receded, leaving behind a sticky, muddy mess in the clubhouse, ruined infrastructure, and all but destroyed the club's new synthetic pitch.

Club president Gary Green said he had never seen anything like it.

"I've lived around this area for 70 years, and in my living memory it's the first time it's ever gone the way that it did.

"It's finished up going through our clubhouse over all of our fields, including the synthetic pitch that we've got here, which looks more like a mountain track at the moment than a pitch." Mr Green said.

"So just floodwater everywhere. There's debris everywhere. Fences knocked down."

A cracked car park at Mitchelton Football Club, in Everton Park, in Brisbane's inner-west. (Facebook: Mitchelton Football Club)

The synthetic pitch will be expensive to fix.

"[My] best guess is … up to a half a million dollars," Mr Green said.

"It cost 1.5 [million] to put it in in the first place."

For a relatively small club, that will mean some serious fundraising.

"We'll have to be talking to all our friends and all the politicians and people like that, to see where we can go from here," Mr Green said.

Local sport faces months of disruption

He said Mitchelton Football Club was one of many sporting clubs dealing with flood damage. 

"Westside Grovely have gone under, Brisbane City went under, Toowong have gone under, Wynnum have gone under … That's just a few, there's more than that," he said.

Mr Green said he expected there would be disruption to competitions as clubs struggle to repair infrastructure and get back on their feet.

The clean up has already started.

"We've got, I reckon, 100 people down here today just helping clean up, pick up rubbish, clean out the club house and things like that," Mr Green said.

"[But] it's going to take more than today, that's for sure."

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