MULGRAVE - Waverley Park (78,000 | 1959 - 2002)

8724 Views 18 Replies 10 Participants Last post by HoldenV8, Jun 7, 2013

Benjuk

Discussion Starter · Dec 13, 2008

3

Waverley Park, Melbourne. Former home of Aussie Rules Football. Was planned at one point to have a capacity of something like 150k (the large stand was to be replicated around the entire perimeter of the pitch).

Is now being turned into a housing estate, although the pitch and the central section of the main stand are still in place, converted into a health club, admin & shopping.
The appartments around the perimeter of the pitch are two/three storeys, with balconies facing toward the pitch which gives the impression of a continuous double tier 'stand' going around the outside of the pitch. Great stuff.

The main stand as it is now.

Pitch-side apartments.

See less See more

1 - 19 of 19 Posts

NavyBlue

· #2 · Dec 22, 2008 (Edited)

Benjuk said:
Waverley Park, Melbourne. Former home of Aussie Rules Football. Was planned at one point to have a capacity of something like 150k (the large stand was to be replicated around the entire perimeter of the pitch).

Is now being turned into a housing estate, although the pitch and the central section of the main stand are still in place, converted into a health club, admin & shopping.
The appartments around the perimeter of the pitch are two/three storeys, with balconies facing toward the pitch which gives the impression of a continuous double tier 'stand' going around the outside of the pitch. Great stuff.

The main stand as it is now.

Pitch-side apartments.

Was supposed to look something like this with a seating capacity between 150-160,000.

A decision the AFL will regret in future...

See less See more

Wezza

· #3 · Dec 22, 2008

Lol, look at the carparking around Waverly Park. Forza public transport!! :lol:

Benjuk

Discussion Starter · #4 · Dec 25, 2008

NavyBlue said:
Was supposed to look something like this with a seating capacity between 150-160,000.

A decision the AFL will regret in future...

Would have been a spectacular sight, no doubt. Pity the AFL picked such a dumb location!

Wezza said:
Lol, look at the carparking around Waverly Park. Forza public transport!! :lol:

And there lies the problem... You couldn't get to the place without a car! I'm told by friends who were regulars there that the shallow nature of the majority of the stadium meant that it was virtually impossible to see the match unless you were 6 feet tall.

NavyBlue

· #5 · Dec 26, 2008

^^

Location wise it was built near the geographical heart of the city...

...and a rail link was 'promised' by the state government of the day. :lol:

Benjuk

Discussion Starter · #6 · Dec 28, 2008

NavyBlue said:
^^

Location wise it was built near the geographical heart of the city...

...and a rail link was 'promised' by the state government of the day. :lol:

Geographical heart and real heart are two very different things though, are they not.

As for state government promisses... Extremely naive to fall for any of them.

BobDaBuilder

· #7 · Dec 28, 2008 (Edited)

Everytime a game is staged at the MCG in Melbourne, a large swag of the profits go to the Melbourne Cricket Club and the income is lost to football.

On top of this, when you have a Grand Final you get 50,000 'cricket club' members getting in to watch the game depriving 'the football public' from a seat.

It is a fucking outrage. It would be like reserving half of Wembley on FA Cup Final day for members of the Marylebone Cricket Club.

It was idiotic to sell VFL Park.

Princes Park was also another crazy move. Carlton should never have left. If Melbourne FC had half a clue they would have moved there 10 years ago and they wouldn't be on their way to bankruptcy by now.

Benjuk

Discussion Starter · #8 · Dec 30, 2008

BobDaBuilder said:
Everytime a game is staged at the MCG in Melbourne, a large swag of the profits go to the Melbourne Cricket Club and the income is lost to football.

On top of this, when you have a Grand Final you get 50,000 'cricket club' members getting in to watch the game depriving 'the football public' from a seat.

It is a fucking outrage. It would be like reserving half of Wembley on FA Cup Final day for members of the Marylebone Cricket Club.

It was idiotic to sell VFL Park.

Princes Park was also another crazy move. Carlton should never have left. If Melbourne FC had half a clue they would have moved there 10 years ago and they wouldn't be on their way to bankruptcy by now.

Partially inspired by this thread, and partly as a result of having a lot of free time lately, I recently drove around to Princes Park, Victoria Park, Windy Hill, Moorabbin, Glenferrie, etc., and found myself bemoaning the lack of imagination shown by the AFL in centralising operations to the MCG, Princes Park, then later Telstra Dome - rather than updating club's 'home' venues and maintaining that sense of geographic 'belonging'.

The problem, it seems to me, is that Melbourne has become so centralised that it's hard to imagine any major veny functioning out of the central area. So the question would be - where do you build a new AFL venue?

Bobby3

· #9 · Dec 30, 2008

Aren't MCC members also MFC members?

BobDaBuilder

· #10 · Dec 30, 2008

Walked over Glenferrie the other night. The Art Deco grandstand still stands. Cannot believe they played league football there. It is quite long, but the wings are very narrow with very small spectator areas on the sides. There are large gums growing in the outer terraces nowadays.

The local residents think it is wonderful the 'riff raff' moved out to Waverley. They don't have all the hoons and idiots to contend with.

Interesting the turnstiles are still there but the ground surface is worse than a cow paddock.

Benjuk

Discussion Starter · #11 · Jan 1, 2009

BobDaBuilder said:
Walked over Glenferrie the other night. The Art Deco grandstand still stands. Cannot believe they played league football there. It is quite long, but the wings are very narrow with very small spectator areas on the sides. There are large gums growing in the outer terraces nowadays.

The local residents think it is wonderful the 'riff raff' moved out to Waverley. They don't have all the hoons and idiots to contend with.

Interesting the turnstiles are still there but the ground surface is worse than a cow paddock.

It's in a shocking state, isn't it? I used to work just round the corner and wife used to train at the State Weightlifting Center (between the two stands). I always thought the terracing on the railway side of the ground was quite 'quaint' with the trees there.

Anyway, it looks like they are looking to follow the Albert Park Oval example of leaving the heritage listed stand to fall over rather than doing any work on it. Someone will 'forget' to lock the doors soon and idiots will get inside and wreck what's left. Tragic that no one seems interested in using it.

HoldenV8

· #12 · Jan 2, 2009

In most cases, when an older stadium is demolished and replaced with another (or another 2 in the case of some American cities for MLB & NFL), its a godsend as the old stadiums were usually not purely suited to the games played there. I know some people cry over the loss of old stadiums but then they usually embrace the new ones with their comforts.

Some people claim that the new stadiums don't have the same character as the older ones and while this may be true, think about this. The old stadiums/arenas didn't have their character when they were first built either. It all takes time.

mvictory

· #13 · Oct 17, 2009

Waverley Park Melbourne. 70,000

See less See more

pachecohv

· #14 · Jul 2, 2010

T74 said:
In order to break the monopoly the MCC had on major sporting stadium in Melbourne, the VFL (now the AFL) build VFL Park out at Waverley

as you can see, while the full terrace level was built, only part of the full stadium was. With a capacity of over 70k, the plan was to expand it with demand till the final stadium would have a capacity of 150k

sadly the expansion never happened, and the cheap ass AFL failed to keep the stadium in decent repair. by the time they decided to sell the land and switch to the Docklands, the joint was close to falling apart.

Today the vast majority of the stadium is gone. The carpark is how suburban housing, however the oval has been retained, as to part of the old stadium (which is now shops and a training facility for the Hawthorn Football Club). This pick is old, the bulldozed areas are now housing

The project looks like "Maracana Stadium"

HoldenV8

· #15 · Oct 4, 2010

Even though it only had a capacity of 78,000, the record attendance at Waverly Park was 92,935 for Collingwood vs Hawthorn on the Queens Birthday public holiday in 1981. Imagine how it would have been had they built it as planned. However, if I am right attempts to do this were blocked. The MCC (Melbourne Cricket Club) had/have a lot of pull with the Victorian State Government and got further development blocked in a successful attempt at keeping the MCG as Melbourne's biggest and best stadium.

Currently its capacity is 2,000. Waverly went by a few different names in its life. Waverly Park, VFL Park, AFL Park and as a reference to it being cold there (especially at night), Arctic Park.

bikegames59

· #16 · Oct 4, 2010

Just because they need more seat arrangements, i also like the old one

bikegames59

· #17 · Oct 4, 2010

Because they need more seat arrangements, i also like old stadium

GrahamClayton

· #18 · Jun 6, 2013

2

VFL Park, Waverley, Melbourne, Australia:

After being used as a venue for Australian Rules football between 1970 and 2000, the stadium was demolished in late 2002 to make way for a housing estate. The only part of the stadium left intact is the members stand.

See less See more

HoldenV8

· #19 · Jun 7, 2013

GrahamClayton said:
VFL Park, Waverley, Melbourne, Australia:

After being used as a venue for Australian Rules football between 1970 and 2000, the stadium was demolished in late 2002 to make way for a housing estate. The only part of the stadium left intact is the members stand.

AAMI Stadium (Football Park) in Adelaide is set to suffer exactly the same fate as Waverley when the Adelaide Oval re-development is finished. It will be used for a while by the SANFL, and the members grandstand will continue to house the SANFL while the Adelaide Crow's will also remain in the club rooms they have built and use the oval as their training base (like Hawthorn at Waverley), though both the Crows and Port Power will be playing at the AO from 2014. However, the areas surrounding the actual playing field are to be sold off by the SANFL (the current land owners) for housing.

Amazingly, these two stadiums (Waverley and Football Park) were opened within 4 years of each other. Other than Waverly being bigger and holding around 30K more than Adelaide's stadium when both were at their peak capacity during the 70s and 80s, the stadiums looked like they were designed by the same people and were Australia's version of 'cookie cutter' stadiums (though they were only designed for Aussie rules football despite also being suitable for cricket). And amazingly both will suffer the same fate, AAMI stadium just lasted 10 years longer.

See less See more

1 - 19 of 19 Posts

This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.