After a long wait and much anticipation, four light towers have finally been erected at the Murrumbateman Rec Grounds, which Yass Valley councillor and Murrumbateman resident Mike Reid said was "fantastic".
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The lights were installed in the last week of June, and have already proven of great benefit to the Murrumbateman Football Club.
Up until this point in the season, the MFC had trained sporadically at Joe O'Connor Oval or under lights provided by the Murrumbateman RFS unit.
With the lights in place, the club is enjoying the freedom to dictate its own training schedule.
"Just for us as a football club to be able to train here at our home ground is massive," club president Andy Ingold said.
"The boys and the club showed a bit of resilience and got through that stage, but now it's pretty impressive."
The lighting is LED and uses little power to maximum effect, Cr Reid said.
"It turns out that one of the chaps at the Men's Shed did a bit of a calculation and figured it'd cost about two dollars an hour to run them," he said with a chuckle.
"They give off a lot of light and use very little power."
The lighting given off by the towers is bright enough to allow the MFC to play night games, which Ingold said he had already discussed with AFL Canberra.
"[Night matches are] certainly something that we'll go for next year, and that'll be a great spectacle for the community," Ingold said.
"I think we'd get a great crowd. Hopefully people would have a feed at the pub, come over, watch it, and just get the community together."
Following the successful installation of the towers, Cr Reid said that he would continue to work with the Murrumbateman Progress Association and individual community groups to establish further goals for the rec ground.
Among the various ideas for the area, Cr Reid listed new changerooms and a grandstand as logical steps forward.
But Cr Reid believes that the lights alone have massively expanded the potential of the rec ground.
"We could have a night-time cricket match there," Cr Reid said.
"We could have an evening match, and if it gets dark we could switch the lights on.
"Who knows what we might attract, in terms of people who want to use it, but certainly there's plenty that could use it."
The lights were funded by a $650,000 grant which was obtained by the YVC under round two of the state government's Stronger Country Communities Fund.
The grant will also allow for improvements to the lighting at Yass's Walker Park.
