Waterlions Swimming Club
The Waterlions Swimming Club has more than 150 registered swimmers spread over a number of squads from learn-to-swim through to National Squad. The club is based at the Grenda Aquatic Centre at the Haileybury College Keysborough campus. There are additional squads and swim lessons at the other campuses of Haileybury College at Brighton and Berwick.
The club is based at the Haileybury College pool (the Grenda Aquatic Centre) in Keysborough, a southeastern suburb of Melbourne.
This is one of the main competition pools in Victoria, hosting many competitions for the club and Metro District South, and has had many international teams training there.
To be part of the Waterlions Swimming Club you do not have to attend Haileybury College. The Waterlions Swimming Club welcomes swimmers with disabilities.
The Pool
The Grenda Aquatic Centre houses a heated 50 metre indoor 8-lane pool with a moveable bulkhead, allowing our swimmers to train for both long-course and short-course depending on the season.
The complex is equipped with electronic timing, has ample spectator seating and has plenty of parking in the school grounds. As a result, Metro District South has selected the Haileybury pool for the district competitions for many years.
The Haileybury pool was also used by one of the top overseas teams for pre-Olympic training before the 2000 Sydney Olympics and by the Australian Commonwealth Games team before the 2006 Games in Melbourne.
This is not a public pool, so we do not have to cope with the problems associated with sharing lane space with the public such as restricted training hours, overcrowding, people swimming across the lanes, noise, security, etc.
The Beginning
The Waterlions Swim Club took shape around 1978, when Wayne Lawes brought together a group of swimmers at the Freeway Sports Centre in Dandenong. The squads trained at Freeway Sports centre for the following few years as the team grew in numbers and stature. In 1989, Wayne took the Waterlions to the King Club in Sandringham, where our swimmers trained alongside the King Club Squads and Swimming Victoria District Three members. After about 3 years at the King Club. The Waterlions moved to the Dandenong Oasis Pool, this time training at the same facility as the Oasis Swim Squads.
Late in 1995, the Waterlions moved to our current home at Haileybury College. Our success grew to a pinnacle in 1996/97 – 1997/98 when we were named the Premier Club of Victoria. We are proud of our relationship with Haileybury College and our ability to use the facilities at the College for training and competition purposes. Our club has been congratulated on numerous occasions for the professional manner in which our own swim meets are conducted. We now have squads at the other campuses of Haileybury College at Berwick and Brighton.
