New book, Great Sporting Sites, showcases a collection of Australia’s iconic ovals, renowned grounds, racetracks and must-visit stadiums, along with the stories that make them special. This edited extract takes us deep inside four legendary local footy fields that we’ll simply never forget…
VICTORIA PARK
Address: Abbot and Lulie streets, Abbotsford Vic
Date opened: 1879
Capacity: 10,000
By ANDREW CLARKE
The home of the Collingwood Football Club, the biggest sporting club in Australia, carried a fearsome reputation that was in many respects fairly earned. Many a parent was nervous about their kids jumping on a combination of trains to get there. It was a frightening place at its peak, jammed with 33,558 spectators on 13 August 1977 for the top of the table one versus two game. Hawthorn beat Collingwood by a kick, but the Pies stayed on top of the ladder. The vitriol of that day lives on and is part of the legend that is Victoria Park.
It is the sort of place that inspired the Indigenous footballer from St Kilda, Nicky Winmar, to proudly show his vilifiers the colour of his skin in one of Collingwood’s least-proud moments. It was hostile and vibrant.
Victoria Park remains the spiritual home of Collingwood, even though it is no longer their physical home. A drop punt from the Victoria Park Railway station and buried deep in the heart of Abbotsford, which was once Collingwood, it boasted crowds as large as 47,000: the biggest home and away crowd for the entire 1948 season, and for an Anzac weekend Monday game against South Melbourne.
It was as much feared by supporters of rival clubs as it was by the teams themselves for 863 Victoria Football League (VFL) games. From its four-goal win in May 1897 over St Kilda to a 42-point thumping at the hands of Brisbane in August 1999 and winning rate of 74.5 per cent, Victoria Park was everything to the Collingwood army. A nomadic Fitzroy padded out the numbers by another 15 games, while semi-finals in 1901 and 1904 gave Victoria Park a total of 880 games, the fourth most in the VFL/Australian Football League.
With residential suburbia encroaching and replacing industry in the surrounding streets and limiting expansion, like other suburban clubs Collingwood was forced to find a new home. There was nowhere to expand, and the revitalised Olympic Park precinct had proven a good new home but not a replacement for Victoria Park.
The ground was built on Dight’s Paddock, a former cattle agistment site, when Frederick Trenerry Brown bought 12 hectares of the paddock in 1878 to develop a residential estate with funding from his uncle Edwin Trenerry. Known as the Campbellfield Estate, at its heart was a pocket of land bounded by Abbott, Lulie, Turner and Bath streets, with a little offcut for Trenerry Cresent that Brown called Victoria Park and gave to the Collingwood City Council in 1882 for the ‘resort and recreation of the citizens of Collingwood’. That gift was a trade-off for the building of some streets.
Ten years later the sporting ground was resurfaced for football and the gravel cycling track that surrounded the oval disappeared. An embankment was built for the crowd to watch the games of the rebranded Brittania Football Club – now Collingwood – and Victoria Park played a key role in the club’s elevation to the Victorian Football Association (VFA) for the 1892 season. During that season a 300-seat grandstand was opened. Collingwood played Carlton for its first home game in the VFA and the navy-blue team won by a goal in front of an estimated 16,000 people. For an essentially new football club the turnout was stunning, and the Collingwood committee wasted no time going to the council to ask for a second grandstand.
When the VFL was formed in 1897 the five-year-old football club was one of its key creators. The Collingwood Cricket Club played at Victoria Park in the summer months, but it was very much a football ground as the football club kept growing on the back of its phenomenal success on the field. The Women’s Pavilion was opened in 1900 for the exclusive use of female fans before becoming the Smoker’s Stand in 1909, when a brick Members’ Stand was built that allowed access for female ticketed members. The Members’ Stand was built at the western end of the ground after the original 1892 stand was relocated.
As the crowds continued to grow, so did the stands. The 3,000-seat Ryder Stand was added in 1929 and was named after the Australian Test cricket captain Jack Ryder, who played for the Victoria Park cricket club that was almost the forgotten tenant of the ground. Where there were no stands the embankment was eventually extended, and by 1961 it was fully terraced.
There are many stories associated with Victoria Park, including that of the forgotten heroes: the men and women who worked in the nearby factories and warehouses during the world wars and the Great Depression. They faced many hardships, but they also found joy and solidarity in their support of the Collingwood team, which they saw as a symbol of their pride and resilience, and they made Victoria Park a place of hope and celebration. It was that strong connection between club and community that created the history and myths of Victoria Park.
Adjacent tennis courts made way for car parking as the football club gained the dominant position at the ground. The S.A. Coventry Pavilion was opened in 1959, and less than a decade later the R.T. Rush Stand covered 213 metres of the outer on the southern side of the ground. In the early 1960s the playing surface was re-laid over summer: twice.
With players such as VFL immortal Gordon Coventry dominating the ground, with 679 goals from 138 games including bags of 17, 16, 15 and 14 in individual games between 1929 and 1934, Collingwood’s fan base was exploding. Collingwood recorded its biggest win and the third biggest in VFL history at Victoria Park in 1979 by 178 points over St Kilda. However, it was never just about games of football and cricket. It was more about the hope that sport at the ground gave to an embattled community, and the sense of hope the success of the football club engendered.
Today only the Sherrin Stand behind the Hoddle Street end goals, the Bob Rose Stand (originally the Social Club Grandstand) and the Ryder Stand remain, along with the stunning entry gates on the corner of Lulie and Turner streets. It remains a special place to Collingwood supporters, and its legend will live in the annals of the Australian Football League as a venue that held fear for opposition players and fans alike.
LEICHHARDT OVAL
Address: Mary Street, Lilyfield, Sydney NSW
Date opened: 1934
Capacity: 20,000
Cheering on the NRL Wests Tigers at Leichhardt Oval on a Sunday afternoon is the closest thing to being transported by time machine back to the 1980s and the heyday of suburban Sydney rugby league. Little has changed at the inner-west ground over the last half century, and this is both good and bad. The facilities are basic, and some structures are embarrassingly dilapidated and seemingly frozen in time yet Leichhardt, as it is widely known, oozes charm and soul. It never lacks for atmosphere, and if the Tigers are on the spectating experience is truly amazing.
When the place is pumping the electricity flows through to television viewers too, many of whom wish they were there live. The picturesque ground is not called the eighth wonder of the world for nothing. The retro rugby league spectating experience starts upon approach, on foot, to the Mary Street or Glover Street entrances through historic Lilyfield. It’s a partially gentrified slice of Sydney, albeit sympathetic to its working-class origins. Good luck finding a parking spot within cooee of the ground, although the lengthy trek through narrow, car-jammed streets serves to build anticipation.
A sprinkling of residents sell sausage sandwiches barbecued on the footpath or driveway, while old-style hotdog vendors also do a roaring trade in feeding the black, gold and white masses on their pilgrimage. Leichhardt Oval, so named for the old council area subsumed into modern-day Inner West Council, sits among other recreational facilities on the Parramatta River’s southern bank. These include playing fields, an aquatic centre, a stretch of the famed 7-km Bay Run and parklands within the Callan Park precinct, the site of a former mental health hospital.
Once inside the ground, reserved seating for one-off visitors is usually available on the field’s eastern side but most casual patrons (that is, non-ticketed members) prefer to perch themselves on the famous hill. Be warned: take a plastic bag or find a cardboard box to sit on, as the grass here is inevitably cold, damp and muddy through winter. The hill inevitably fills up late, as the many historic pubs in Balmain and Rozelle do a roaring trade immediately before and after games.
The hill’s centrepiece is the visually unimpressive Wayne Pearce Scoreboard, complete with a matchday attendant manually updating the score. An important part of the game-day experience is facing the grandstand after any Tigers try or goal, extending your arms towards the scoreboard with fingers wiggling as if to magically assist the attendant then cheering when the score is finally updated. The attendant loves to play to the crowd and build the suspense. On the other side of the field is the distinctive, if ageing, N.C. (Latchem) Robinson Stand. Quite the mouthful.
Leichhardt Oval was the home ground of the Balmain Tigers from 1934 until the 1990s. Since the Balmain Tigers merged with the Western Suburbs Magpies for the 2000 season it has been one of three home grounds for the Wests Tigers joint venture, hosting a handful of National Rugby League games per season. It was significantly revamped in the 1970s with the playing field realigned from east-west to north-south and lighting installed. It became home to the mid-week Amco Cup competition in 1974 for more than a decade. The attendance record is 22,750, set in 1989 in a game between the Balmain Tigers and the St George Dragons. Capacity today is nominally 20,000 but realistically sits around the 18,000 mark and is capped for safety reasons.
The ground hosted a number of pre–State of Origin games between Queensland and New South Wales until 1981, and A-League and rugby union matches more recently. However, it’s best known today as the spiritual home of the Tigers despite its somewhat run-down feel. In June 2024 state and federal governments committed $40 million for an upgrade that will include a new grandstand at the northern end and upgrades to other existing facilities. It’s undoubtedly much needed, although many traditionalists likely fear it will kill the vibe.
If you’re lucky you’ll get to witness the excitement of a Tigers win – a 33 per cent chance over the last decade – celebrated back at a pub, club or one of Norton Street, Leichhardt’s pizzerias. The really lucky ones were present for local hero Pearce’s farewell game in 1990 or witnessed some Benji Marshall magic: a trademark flick pass or chip’n’chase resulting in a try that sealed a win and sent the faithful into raptures.
HENSON PARK
Address: 32 Centennial Street, Marrickville NSW
Date opened: 1933
Capacity: 30,000
By ALAN WHITICKER
Although it has long been considered the poor relation of the world’s professional football sports, rugby league has always been regarded as the working-man’s game. From its origins in northern England as a breakaway rugby league in 1895 to its adoption by Sydney’s inner city rugby clubs in 1908, the 13-man game quickly found a home with the country’s working class. This was no more so than with the Newtown club, originally known as the Bluebags with their navy-blue jerseys made out of old sugarbags from the local mills. You can’t get more working class than that!
Henson Park, situated in the Sydney suburb of Marrickville, remains the spiritual home of the Newtown Leagues Club. Founded in January 1908 – there are many fans who maintain Newtown was the first to form under the banner of the New South Wales Rugby Football League, although this is disputed – the new club competed against neighbouring leagues from Glebe, Balmain, Western Suburbs and South Sydney, as well as clubs from Eastern Suburbs, North Sydney, Newcastle and, later, Cumberland (Parramatta). What fired the tribal following for these teams from suburb to suburb was local fans’ attachment to their suburban sporting grounds. Henson Park, for Newtown diehards, was no different.
Originally a brick pit run by the Standsure Brick company, its closure in 1914 left a huge water hole that was deemed a public danger when several young boys drowned there during the ensuing decade. Marrickville Council purchased the 9-acre (3.6-hectare) site in 1923 and developed it into a multipurpose park. Named in honour of former mayor William Thomas Henson, Henson Park officially opened in September 1933 with a cricket match between a Marrickville XI team and a North Sydney District team, which included a young player named Don Bradman.
The Bluebags originally played matches at nearby Marrickville Oval and did not play their first game at Henson Park until three years later. Since then, the oval has hosted an Empire Games, countless Australian Football League games and even A-grade soccer grand finals.
Henson Park is a uniquely suburban sporting field. As soon as you come through the gates on Centennial Street – renamed the Charlie Meader Memorial Gates in 2001 after the ground’s long-serving custodian – fans are transported to an earlier time of lazy Saturday afternoon matches; Sunday fixtures did not come into vogue until the 1960s. Surrounded by Federation cottages and Californian bungalows dating back more than 100 years, Henson Park remains the only football ground in Sydney where you can drive inside and park on the enormous hill and watch a game from the comfort of your own car.
The King George V Memorial Grandstand on the western side of the park stands today as a stark reminder of the ground’s glory days of the 1930s. Named in memory of the British monarch who died in 1936, it was opened in time for the 1938 Empire Games (later the Commonwealth Games). It may be hard to believe post Sydney Olympics but humble Henson Park was the venue for athletics, cycling and the closing ceremony of those games, which attracted a crowd of more than 40,000! The small, two-level grandstand hastily built for the occasion now seats just 1,000 lucky fans.
Newtown played their first rugby league game there on 11 April 1936, defeating University 21-0. For the next five decades, until the foundation club exited the New South Wales Rugby League (NSWRL) competition at the end of 1983, local crowds delighted in the deeds of 1943 premiership-winning captain ‘Bumper’ Farrell, 1957 World Cup-winning captain Dicky Poole, 1967-68 Kangaroo ‘Chicka’ Moore and former Wests’ great Tommy Raudonikis, who came to the club in 1980. In 1977 local fans watched American gridiron import Manfred Moore throw a football over the George V Stand, but by that time the club would have tried anything to bring the crowds back.
Few Sydney suburbs suffered more from changing demographics post-World War II than Newtown. Originally a working-class area rooted in blue-collar jobs in the manufacturing sector, the district changed dramatically in the 1960s and 1970s when industries started to move out of the area. Increased unemployment, the further deskilling of a largely migrant workforce and the growing gap between rich and poor were reflected in the fortunes of the Newtown Leagues Club on Enmore Road, the number of juniors in the district and the strength of the crowds at Henson Park.
In 1955, when the Bluebags sat atop the competition, a record 21,547 fans watched their clash with the great St George team; Newtown won 15-10. Twenty years later, with the club languishing at the bottom of the league ladder, the club’s average home crowd had fallen below 4,000: not that the club didn’t try to combat this change. Ad-man John Singleton supported the club financially and tried to bring some modern-day razzamatazz to the venue. Having rechristened themselves as the Newtown Jets, a nod to nearby Mascot Airport (the club was going places, it said), the club’s last hurrah in the NSWRL was their appearance in the 1981 grand final under coach Warren Ryan. Two years later, when the club was excluded from the rugby league competition after 76 seasons, Henson Park faced obsoletion.
When a planned move to Campbelltown did not eventuate, Newtown was relegated to the second-tier competition of the New South Wales Cup to act as a feeder club for various National Rugby League franchisees such as Souths, Easts and Cronulla. Rather than become embittered by the league’s decision to exclude them, the Jets have reinvented themselves at Henson Park just as the suburb itself has become gentrified and embracing of a vibrant arts community. Henson Park survives. The Beer Footy & Food Festival held each year attracts huge crowds, and not all of them come for the football.
GLENFERRIE OVAL
Address: 34 Linda Crescent, Hawthorn Vic
Date opened: 1905
Capacity: 10,000
By ANDREW CLARKE
Glenferrie Oval is a quaint, undersized football oval often derided by competitors of the Hawthorn Football Club, even in the days before the mega stadiums that populate the modern Australian Football League. However, its mere presence and location was enough to inspire the Victorian Football League (VFL) to include the up to that point remarkably unsuccessful Mayblooms, as today’s Hawks were called back then, into its ranks in 1925.
The oval is part of the Grace Park Estate and was opened in 1905 as the Hawthorn City Sports Ground, but colloquially it was soon known as Glenferrie Oval and became entrenched in the history of the Hawthorn Football Club. From 1906 to 1973 it was the club’s home ground, and in many respects it remains their spiritual home despite the Hawks preparing to move a second time since leaving ‘home’. When the Hawks win a premiership – which they have done 13 times since 1961 – it is Glenferrie where the fans congregate to celebrate. Hawthorn’s early history was potted with Ls, and their first win in the VFL was at the ground in 1925 against Footscray.
Fittingly, just two years after winning their second premiership in 1973 they farewelled the ground with a win over South Melbourne. Glenferrie Oval was already on its last legs as a VFL home ground when Peter Hudson’s knee buckled under him in 1972, robbing the game of its most prolific goal scorer for many years. A lot of the blame for the injury was levelled at the playing surface, and it was clear the negotiations for Hawthorn to play elsewhere were accelerated.
Colloquially known as the ‘sardine tin’, it is only 14 metres shorter than the Melbourne Cricket Ground but it is 55 metres narrower – it is even narrower than the odd-shaped Kardinia Park – and that led to some fairly congested football. The crowd had no more space than the players, and the facilities out on the wings were tight with little space between the playing surface and railway line on the southern side and Linda Cresent on the north.
The facilities at the ground were good enough to convince the Victorian Football Association to admit Hawthorn in 1914, and the same was true in 1925 when the VFL took in Hawthorn. The local council that had run the bid to get its team into the biggest league touted its plans for a 46,000-person venue, which would have been an amazing feat in itself. The terrace in front of the railway line eventually featured tiers that were each two-feet wide.
The first grandstand was relocated from the East Melbourne Cricket Ground in 1921 and was known as the Kennon-Owen Stand. In 1937 Glenferrie Oval’s stunning art deco grandstand was built and is today named after club legend Michael Tuck. In its bowels were two new change rooms and administration of the club was tucked underneath at ground level. The stand is heritage protected, world renowned and globally significant. It sets the mood for the venue and is symbolic of the growing wealth of the suburb in that era. It is presently undergoing a renovation as part of a ground revitalisation project by the current custodian of the ground, the City of Boroondara.
At the eastern end of the ground, the Glenferrie Road end, a new scoreboard was built in 1963 and the now demolished Dr A.S. Feguson stand was built in 1966. In the old language that stand was 185 feet long with seating for 1,450, and in its glory days it added to the great atmosphere at the ground thanks to the intimacy of the experience.
As Hawthorn built through the 1960s they became increasingly aware that the ground they held with great affection was holding them back, and they moved their home games to Princes Park in Carlton. Hawthorn retained Glenferrie Oval as their training base for many years with Princes Park, Waverley Park and now the Melbourne Cricket Ground as their home ground. They moved their training and administrative facilities to Waverley Park at the end of the 2006 season and will soon move to Dingley. Slowly, Hawthorn’s presence at Glenferrie Oval has been dismantled, the social club has gone and the Michael Tuck Stand is the only remnant left of the Hawks’s imprint at the ground – except for when Hawthorn wins a premiership, and then Glenferrie Oval buzzes to the Hawks fans again.
When you look at Glenferrie Oval today it is amazing to think VFL footy was played there at all, and even harder to imagine that 36,786 fans could squeeze into the sardine tin for the opening round of the 1965 season. As Hawthorn played their way into being a powerhouse of the VFL they turned Glenferrie Oval into a fortress, but while they did that it also became a limiting factor to their on- and off-field development.
Even without the Hawks, there is plenty going on at Glenferrie Oval as the revitalisation project kicks into gear, with new open spaces replacing dilapidated stands and the Michael Tuck Stand ready for a fresh lick of paint. It will never see AFL football, but it will be well geared for lesser level and junior football. What will always remain is the spirit of the Hawks, of the story from easy beats to the dominant team of the biggest sporting competition in Australia: all with the magnificent Michael Tuck Stand casting a magnificent art deco shadow across the turf that once saw Peter Hudson kick 16 goals in one match three years before the ground cut him down.
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