Turf unveiled at McHugh Park. What’s next?

A ribbon cutting was held at McHugh Park Monday evening to officially celebrate Windsor's first turf soccer field. CTV's Bob Bellacicco reports.

A ribbon cutting was held at McHugh Park Monday evening to officially celebrate Windsor’s first turf soccer field.

“It’s been requested for many years,” explained Mayor Drew Dilkens. “We actually started the process before COVID and then COVID derailed everything.”

After years of building the project into the city’s capital budget and partnering with the province, who pitched in $1 million, the Essex County Soccer Association (ECSA), the field finally became a reality.

“That allowed us to deliver the first FIFA style and FIFA sized turf soccer field,” Dilkens said.

Essex County Soccer Association Joe Barile says the field complies with FIFA standards including field dimensions, surface, lighting, benches and goals. “So, if we happen to host an international game, it’s approved. If we happen to host a televised game, the lighting has been put in place to televise games,” Barile told CTV News. He says Windsor is one of the last cities with a population of more than 200,000 people to have a municipally owned turf field.

However, many questioned why the turf was at the back end of McHugh Park. The answer: the field is only phase one.

“Phase two is a broader vision of converting other fields into turf fields,” Barile said.

According to him, phase two includes a soccer specific stadium.

“Yes, we have the college. We have the university, but we don’t have a municipality-owned and as we know we just lost Windsor Stadium that used to be the premier facility in the city of Windsor back in the day,” he said.

Barile points out it has taken four years of planning and partnership between the ECSA, the city and province to get to this point and now the soccer community is working towards bringing phase two to life.

“We’re rebuilding the vision to see if we can recreate that in a modified manner and have a specific stadium field to play on,” Barile said.

Dilkens says it all comes down to dollars and cents.

“And partnerships but we will continue to look at the provincial programs,” he said. Minister of Sport Neil Lumsden expects Windsor to make another pitch for funding when that window opens.

“Generally, the results are pretty good when you put the work in, like anything else and they came out obviously the first time through CSWRIF (Community Sport and Recreation Infrastructure Fund) successful. We’re standing on it,” he said. “If I’m guessing they’re going to do a great job but that doesn’t mean other people won’t as well. I love competition. It’ll be fun to see what happens.”