Nearly 30 years after first stepping out onto the grass at Fletcher’s Fields, Nathalie Bendavid took her final bow at the historic rugby venue last month.
“It’s been a difficult goodbye, I'm not going to lie,” said the former national team player.
The 20-acre facility in Markham, which first opened in 1966 and was named after the late Denis Fletcher, was sold to the City of Markham in 2021. Now the 2024 rugby season has come to a close, the city has taken ownership of the land.
Getting her start at Fletcher’s playing rugby in high school, Bendavid would go on to spend “every weekend almost” at the venue, as she rose through the ranks on her way to playing for Canada at the 2009 Rugby Women’s World Cup.
Now she coaches, both with the Aurora Barbarians (whose teams regularly face the Barrie Rugby Club) and at Thornlea Secondary School, often bringing her teams back to Fletcher’s.
“Over the last, I guess 25 to almost 30 years, I’ve been going to Fletcher’s every weekend almost,” she said. “I’ve really grown up there, I spent a lot of my late teens, and my 20s growing up at Fletcher’s.”
Six rugby clubs owned the facility, Aurora Barbarians Rugby Football Club, Markham Irish Canadian Rugby Club, Rugby Ontario, Nomads Rugby Football Club of Toronto, Toronto Saracens Rugby Football Club and Toronto Scottish Rugby Football Club.
“In between games, there’s a real sense of community there where everybody kind of watches games together, or chats after the game together,” said Bendavid. “It’s just like a gathering place for rugby people.”
But declining revenues, especially during the pandemic, meant the clubs running the field faced a difficult decision, according to John Reich, former president of Fletcher’s Fields and the Barbarians.
“There we were, sitting with a very valuable asset, losing money,” he said. “It was a very challenging time through COVID, in many respects the City of Markham’s offer for the property was a godsend, it gave us an opportunity to develop other plans.”
“There’s a tonne of history there for us, rugby-wise,” said Bendavid. “It’s a shame that there wasn't a way to keep it alive.”
“There’s a lot of special memories there,” she added.
Closure of Fletcher’s Fields leads to $2.5M Sheppard's Bush turf
Armed with the proceeds of the Fletcher’s Fields sale, Reich and the Barbarians started looking for a new home.
“Fletcher’s Fields complex is a large clubhouse and six rugby pitches, so we’re giving up quite a bit there,” said Reich. “With the money that we had, we knew we couldn’t find anything similar that we could own, so we started looking at partnership arrangements.”
The club presented to the Town of Aurora its proposal for a new turf field at Sheppard’s Bush, off of Industrial Parkway South, in 2023. The plot already had a turf field and a number of smaller sized soccer fields, some of which are being cleared for the new turf field.
The club offered to chip in roughly $1 million from the sale of Fletcher’s Fields toward building the new field, with the town approving a budget of $1.75 million of its own money in this past year’s budget.
The project, set to cost more than $2.5 million, includes flood lights, a perimeter fence, seating for 800 people, and a regulation 22 turf field, the kind seen on professional pitches in the U.K.
Part of the club’s proposal also involved spending $750,000 on a clubhouse. The club had looked at improving the existing public washrooms facility, but Reich said they were told the building would be owned by the Ontario Heritage Trust. This brought up concerns for the club, which is currently "keeping their options open."
Reich said, in the meantime, the club would put out sea cans for change rooms, adding that space could open up in nearby industrial buildings or a neighbouring house in the future.
Work on the new field is set to start soon. Reich said earth-moving equipment crews would be coming once the soccer season is over, with the foundations hopefully completed “before the snow flies.”
From there, the ultimate end goal is for the field to be open on May 1, 2025, in time for the new rugby season.
What’s happening to Fletcher’s Fields?
A City of Markham spokesperson said they are currently “reviewing potential options” for the land.
“The current tenant indicated to the City that they will be vacating the premises in the near term,” an email stated. “The lands are currently zoned commercial recreation and are strategically located in Markham’s emerging innovation district known as the Markham Innovation Exchange.”
“The city will be reviewing potential options to determine how the site is best utilized.”
