Waverley Park (VFL Park)

[North park]

Funny enough todays news

Waverley Park was set to be the second biggest stadium in the world — but its demise is a lesson we can't ignore

As debate rages over new stadiums in Hobart and Brisbane, the 25-year anniversary of Waverley Park's demise should be treated as a case study of what not to do.

www.abc.net.au

That is what triggered by memory of the YouTube video.

I recall the hype in 1970 when the ground was opened and the plans for it to seat 160,000 people with two levels all the way around. The Grand Final in 1970 had a crowd of 121,696 at the MCG, so at the time a ground capacity of 160,000 for football wasn't an outrageous idea.

 

[North park]

Springvale in the VFL played its home games at Waverly in 2000 and the VFL played its Grand Final at Waverly Park in 2000 also. So technically yes 2000 was the last match played their.

2000 VFL season - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Thanks for clarifying that VFL Park was used by Springvale in the 2000 season and the last game played there was the 2000 Grand Final between Sandringham and North Ballarat.

I had no idea the ground was used after 1999.

 

[Gordon Farkas]

Thanks for clarifying that VFL Park was used by Springvale in the 2000 season and the last game played there was the 2000 Grand Final between Sandringham and North Ballarat.

I had no idea the ground was used after 1999.

They also played AFL pre-season cup games there in 2000, as Colonial Stadium (as it was first known) was not yet complete.

Apparently they also found a few corpses in cars in the farthest reaches of the car park, who had never made it out in previous years.

Most were from the final game there in 1999, but the oldest were carbon dated back to the big Hawks-Pies game that drew 92,000 in 1981.

 

[Wallaby]

My son played in the half-time Auskick at half time of the VFL GF in 2000. Given that he went down the 'struggling muso' route rather than the 'non-athlete embarassing himself on the field' path that his old man did, it's likely to remain the sporting highlight of his life.

 

[Tandy]

Anyone got footage of what the facilities look like now for Hawthorn? I've only been on the outside never inside

 

[mianfei]

Funny enough todays news

Waverley Park was set to be the second biggest stadium in the world — but its demise is a lesson we can't ignore

As debate rages over new stadiums in Hobart and Brisbane, the 25-year anniversary of Waverley Park's demise should be treated as a case study of what not to do.

www.abc.net.au

A mooted train line to the stadium never eventuated, resulting in a migraine-inducing bottleneck from the car park to the freeway after each game.

The issue was always pure road lobby power, nothing more, nothing less. The government, its closely linked allies in the car, metal ore, component and energy corporations, and locals in the area were not willing to drastically cut the roads budget to free money for a rail line that was proposed before VFL Park was so much as built. Globalisation weakened the economic power of Australian labour and made it much less possible for ordinary people to demand the critical railway.

Waverley Park, whilst a very good idea on paper, was ruined by politics over which the VFL/AFL never had control, and would have needed unpalatable allies to deal with at all effectively.

 

[Gordon Farkas]

The issue was always pure road lobby power, nothing more, nothing less. The government, its closely linked allies in the car, metal ore, component and energy corporations, and locals in the area were not willing to drastically cut the roads budget to free money for a rail line that was proposed before VFL Park was so much as built. Globalisation weakened the economic power of Australian labour and made it much less possible for ordinary people to demand the critical railway.

Waverley Park, whilst a very good idea on paper, was ruined by politics over which the VFL/AFL never had control, and would have needed unpalatable allies to deal with at all effectively.

Nice try Agent Mulder, but the reality was somewhat less titillating.

It was the Cain Labor government that ultimately kyboshed the proposed railway line in the early 1980s.

Separately to this, the government’s Country Roads Board (the predecessor of VicRoads) decided not to upgrade any more of the roads around VFL Park. This was a key factor in the Labor government refusing to grant planning approval for the expansion of the ground. Had such approval been granted, it would have resulted in thousands more cars on even more roads and greater road usage for years to come.

All these decisions were very clear and well-known at the time. They weren’t made secretly in smoke-filled rooms on grassy knolls.

So much for the Great Road Lobby Conspiracy Theory.