Shark Park, Stark Park … call it what you like. It’s a dive

If it were a primary school, it would be condemned.

If it was a work site, People and Culture and Occupational Health and Safety would be in a crocodile roll to bring down the biggest penalties. Shark Park, Stark Park, Dark Park … call it what you like.

It’s a dive. Beyond a dive. If it was the ’70s, George Miller would rent it to film Mad Max. And he wouldn’t be able to believe his luck. A functioning bomb site.

Admittedly, when the Sharks hosted the Cowboys last week, the weather was terrible. Appropriately apocalyptic.

Notwithstanding that, even on a sunny day, it is so far below NRL standard it’s unfathomable the game’s powerbrokers find it acceptable to play there.

A billion-dollar game playing in a tin pot stadium – “stadium” being a loose use of the word.

A series of pictures taken by this masthead while the game was on lay the problems bare. It’s the worst professional sporting ground in the nation.

The litany of problems is endless.

Behind the main stand, a water pump is needed to make the food beverage area usable.

At the north-west end, temporary fences have been there so long they’re not temporary at all.

The main corporate facility is a glorified marquee, while another single box resembles a cubby house.

Most of the toilets in the venue are Portaloos, which belong on a building site. Which is apt. Many sit exposed at the top of the hill. Leave your privacy and dignity at the door.

On the corporate level at the top of the main stand (corporate level being another loose use of the term), there is one single female toilet and one single one for males. Take a ticket.

The cold storage units are temporary (that word again) and they are outside in the elements.

Water gathers everywhere – at the front of the stand, at the front of the public area near the field, on walkways ... regulars are so attuned to it that the kids wear gumboots.

The stairway to the main stand gathers water and a single cone is used to denote the hazard.

At the far north-east of the ground, more temporary fencing separates the hill from the outside, which is half building site, half dumping ground, complete with multiple power cables running through it.

Bunnings Caringbah must do a roaring trade selling Shark Park extension cords – they’re everywhere, even through ankle deep puddles.

Half the eastern stand hasn’t been used for years.

An Asian restaurant opened in a new part of the private development on the eastern side last year, but it closed two weeks ago.

The old boys used it instead for old boys’ day.

Nor is there any revamp of the ground in sight. Sharks CEO Dino Mezzatesta has it on his to-do list, and he promises to talk to the state government and Venues NSW in an attempt to rescue the joint. But he has no real plan. Just a hope that something will happen.

First on his list is finally rebuilding the Sharks Leagues Club on the eastern side. The club has been closed since 2019 when developers took control of the site.

Since then, the multiple apartment blocks, a huge shopping centre, a hotel and car parks at the Woolooware precinct have been built and are operating. But the club never happened.

Everything around the ground is new. Everything inside the ground is falling down. It’s bizarre.

The new club was supposed to open in 2022. There have been all sorts of excuses, such as the post-COVID-19 building supply crisis, but that didn’t stop the rest being built. Since then, the club has operated out of a second venue in Kareela.

Mezzatesta announced to club members last week that the Sharks had finally been handed back the club “shell” after a long-running battle with the developers – a battle which has never properly been explained.

The riches from the overall site development have not eventuated, and getting real answers is hard. The club will now borrow more than $35 million to rebuild the club.

“The club is back in our hands and builders are engaged,” Mezzatesta said. “It will take 13 months to complete outside and in. We are looking at August, September next year.

“Once we get it back and running and the revenue firing, even though we’ll have taken on debt, we’ll then look at the stadium. But we won’t get there for 18 months.

“Every other club has been given substantial amounts of money, whether it’s for a centre of excellence, even stadiums, whether it’s state or federal money.

“We have got nothing, and that’s something that’s not right.”

In the meantime, the show rolls on. The Sharks take on the Titans next Saturday at home. If you’re a Mad Max fan, check it out.

Michael Chammas and Andrew “Joey” Johns dissect the upcoming NRL round, plus the latest footy news, results and analysis. Sign up for the Sin Bin newsletter.