Lake Macquarie Regional Football Facility

The Lake Macquarie Regional Football Facility is a multi-purpose sports complex located in the Lake Macquarie region of New South Wales, Australia.

Opened in November 2014, the facility was built to bring together the fragmented clubs of the region on a single site. The main building, now known as the Craig Johnston Building, sits between the training pitches and the grandstand. It houses the administration for Northern NSW Football (NNSWF), which manages the complex with the local council. The move was intended to provide a proper base for the Newcastle Jets Youth team, which shifted its home matches here in 2020.

The grandstand itself is modest, with red and blue seats arranged in a single tier. The seating area is covered by a flat roof supported by steel trusses, and the structure is low and functional. Behind the far end of the pitch, the terraced seating drops away into the landscape, with the hillside visible above the concrete steps. The pitch is marked clearly for a full-size field, though the surrounding area is dominated by the smaller five-a-side pitches that fill the space behind the main stand. The aerial view shows the two main fields positioned parallel to each other, with the smaller pitches clustered around them in a grid.

It is not a stadium built for spectacle, but for survival. When Lake Macquarie City Football Club needed to upgrade their own ground, they found a temporary home here. The facility also hosts the State Cup Final for the region, a day when the local clubs bring everything to the table. The stands are rarely full, but when they are, the proximity to the water means the sound carries out to the boats on the bay. The artificial turf has kept the schedule running through the winter, allowing the youth teams to play without interruption.