Sports club member Morris Breel, 92, comes twice a week: "It's a social place." Credit:Justin McManus Instead, the sports centre has slowly run down and the RSL has now told the 106 remaining sporting club members it will shut at the end of June. Morris Breel, 92, has been using the sports centre since Premier Rupert Hamer opened it in 1974. "It's a social place," he said, standing on the pool deck. "They want this area for parking." A group of angry members who have taken on the RSL's management are questioning whether what is planned is legal. They are staging a meeting at the RSL on Tuesday night, to gather signatures to petition RSL headquarters. "We merged with the RSL to keep this sporting complex – that was it, that was all there was to it. Otherwise we would have sold this land and divided [the money] among community groups," said Preston local and 15-year member Lorette Fleming.

Long-time member Norma Grant, 88, wants the centre left open. Credit:Justin McManus Current RSL branch president Robert Cross, who could not be reached on Monday, promised in 2009 that the sporting complex would be redeveloped with money from the sale of the now closed Northcote RSL. Nothing happened. In 2012, plans were even drawn up for a $2.5 million sports centre on the site. Again, nothing happened. Kevin Bolger, 88, uses the pool daily: "Five-thirty of a morning, I'm here." Credit:Justin McManus The RSL also has an agreement with Grocon to sell off the nearby Fairfield RSL for $5.6 million.

The RSL has told members it wants to close the pool and sports centre in Preston because it lost $32,000 last financial year. The restaurant and bar lost far more – $320,000 – but helped bring in pokies revenue. Members of the sporting club have been offered subsidised memberships at a public pool and gym in Reservoir. RSL Victorian branch president David McLachlan confirmed plans to shut the sports centre.

"They want to close it because it's old, and they do need more parking," he said. The sports centre's closure was "not just for more electronic gaming machines. If you realise where it is located, parking is a real problem. "Promises made a decade ago are made in good faith, but the circumstances change," Major-General McLachlan said. He said the RSL had rescued the Preston Club, which was drowning in debt. And he said the RSL made a massive contribution to Victorian society, and to pick out this one example of a closure was unfair. Paraic Grogan is among those fighting the RSL's plans to shut the sports centre. He has been a member for just four years, and at 38 is one of the youngest there. "People who've been coming for 20, 30, some 40 years, this is their only social activity," he said. "It's profit before community." He said the RSL was one of Australia's most respected organisations, but was behaving badly in this case. "They are kicking a bunch of old people out of their sporting club that's been here for 40 years. If this was a private corporation, a bank or a mine, you'd go OK … [But] the RSL is meant to be in the business of offering services to their members."

Kevin Bolger, 88, lives nearby and uses the pool daily. "Five-thirty of a morning, I'm here," he said. Closure of the pool would make a big difference, he said. "If I go to Reservoir, it's too impersonal; this is a small family place. I meet three or four or five people some mornings, mates you can have a yack to. If I wasn't coming here I'd have nobody – I live on my own. Quite a lot of it is the companionship, someone to talk to occasionally."