Rologas is the most used sporting venue in the city and was identified in needing an upgrade to its infrustructure and playing surfaces by the former Armidale Dumaresq Council and the Sports Council. 

The works were worth $1.8 million which included new soil and turf to help with drainage, a refurbishment of the current building, a new separate public toilet block and a new building with home and away dressing rooms. 

The grounds were donated to council in 1970 by Chris Rologas.

They were initially named Wicklow Oval but were changed to Rologas Sporting Fields in 2004 to honour Chris and his family, who still live locally. 

Armidale Sports Council’s chair Colin Gadd was on hand to unveil the upgrades to the facilities and said will boost sport in the district. 

"I can speak on behalf of the sporting community of Armidale and particularly the thousands of soccer players, from five to however old they want to be, who run around here every Saturday during the football season, the cricketers, I umpired two games of cricket here on Saturday so there was 50 or 60 people involved in those games,” he said.

"The touch players expressed their gratitude to the Armidale Dumaresq Council for having the foresight and the initiative to get this project underway.

"A lot of people who might have other interests and decry the spending of money on sporting facilities overlook the fact that the motel owners, the coffee shop owners, the petrol stations, all appreciate it when we have tournaments here.

"It pays tribute to the quality of our sporting grounds and the quality of our players that we are able to produce on those grounds.” 

Member for Northern Tablelands Adam Marshall said it was a great project not just for local sport but for the whole region. 

"When people think of Armidale, they often think of education but actually once you go past that and look at the sheer volume of facilities we have in this community, it is little wonder that Armidale plays host to so many regional, state and sometimes national sporting championships,” he said.

"I am really excited to see this facility get used even further to help Armidale attract even more of those national sporting competitions and championships because it is not just for sport, as we know sport brings in millions of dollars to this local economy each year.”