The recent investment in Cooper's stadium has rekindled my obsession with stadiums, in particular local, boutique ones.

Stadiums give clubs a home to appreciate the past and work towards to future and bar the fans, are often a clubs' only constant in terms of identity and culture. As a result stadiums can be the key to club success and are a material reason behind club development and possible A-League expansion.

Post news regarding redevelopment, new building and even just proposals for stadiums that impact Australian Football.

Huge 15,000 seat injection into local football grounds around SA due to the replacement of seats at Hindmarsh, first sets delivered to Marden Sports Complex. Massive step in local infrastructure and something lacking from clubs here in Vic...

Yeah i fucking miss Olympic Park, we never should have left. Sure it was a dump but so is Etihad. AAMI Park might be a better view but atmosphere wise it's just can't compete with old terraces. There was just so much history in the place from touring European sides, Slavia vs the VFL, NSL Finals, Olympic Football world cup qualifiers like Australia vs Scotland.





Seriously the spiritual home of Football, Rugby League and Atheltics in the State get's flattened so Collingwood can walk 5 minutes less to their fucking training oval.

Deliberate and carefully orchestrated plan to win over the land... McGuire is (despite what people say) a very very smart man, and fought tooth and nail for the move

McGuire resigns from Athletics Australia Board

http://www.couriermail.com.au/questnews/moreton/redcliffe-dolphins-has-revealed-plans-for-a-12-million-stadium-at-dolphin-oval/story-fni9r1i7-1226907637419
Not an A-League team, but a possible NPL

8-[

Edited by A16Man: 14/9/2014 08:38:55 PM

Wollongong.

But seriously I'm pretty sure South Coast Wolves play more games than any other tenant at WIN Stadium

Just on the stadiums, is there plans to redevelop the other half of NIB stadium in Perth? Two of the stands look great, but the main stand and the shed end don't look so good. It looks like a half-finished stadium.

even if they just re-built the main stand in the same design as the new stand opposite it and included new corporate facilities it would make a huge difference and could help Perth attract marquee matches, such as Socceroos fixtures.

I could be wrong but isn't the western stand heritage protected?

Yes. The work done so far was Stage 1. Stage 2 if/when it is done will take capacity to 25k.

Is that WIN stadium?

Its a bloody good ground.

Yes it is. So are the entrance gates on Bulwer Street.

Yep.

Great place to watch football too.

#roofpolicy

-PB

Didn't realise it was so close to the beach. Mint

As a youngen I had the chance of being a ballboy and sandboy for South Sydney in the NRL and their youth sides. Got to travel all over Australia for every away match. One of the real highlights even back then as a kid was travelling with the youth sides (u-18s -21s) because a lot of the time they'd play at the reserve stadiums. I got to see a lot of these places from inside and out. There's a shit load of stadiums around that just go to waste.

It's all safe now!


[size=1]I hope[/size]

Used by Victory for a few games, including Carlos' first Victory game in preseason against the Jets in 2008, a few W-League fixtures, and now they will play an A-League premiership season game at Simonds Stadium in 2015, 2016 and 2017, but most notably on that great night qualifying for the ACL Group Stage against a very tough and talented Muangthong United:

[youtube]znBwrrSaWF0[/youtube]

Skinniest ground in the AFL with the furthest front row seat at the widest part of the flanks being much closer than Etihad, located less than 400 metres from South Geelong train station, which is about an hour from the Melbourne CBD, and about 1000 metres from the Geelong CBD.

The seats are closer than the stadium with Australia's club record crowd holder in Etihad, closer than any of the 95,000 that saw Victory v Liverpool or Australia vs Greece at the MCG, and closer than anyone at the 2006 World Cup final at the Olimpiastadion Berlin or will be at the next World Cup final at Luzhniki in Moscow.






















On the broadcast the commentators had nothing but praise for the quality of the pitch, which is hardly surprising seeing as it is all but abandoned by the AFL, but also because of support from the Geelong City Council, who own the stadium. In fact, and apologies for those of you that have already heard this anecdote, but when I worked for a news network in Melbourne that sent me down to cover Geelong's precious AFL team, the Cats, presenting their first AFL premiership trophy in a generation to their fans, I spoke to a groundsman employed by the council who confirmed to me that they forced the club in their moment of triumph to hold the event in the stadium parking lot to avoid fouling the grass for a Melbourne Victory open training session scheduled for the next day! Imagine that happening in Melbourne.



Was of course a part of the plan for Australia's 2022 World Cup bid, earmarked for a major upgrade to a 44k capacity and even to host a Quarter Final:


Basically it's best moment was providing the venue for the very most important of the rare #feedings of the Brox:


As far as Victorian oval venues go, this is as good as it gets for football, and based on that great game Kardinia Park could become as renowned and beloved as any home for football in this country if only the football was provided for the place.

Geelong has the Wiltonian Hattrick of demographic conditions conducive for a fanbase for football: young males (it's a uni town), ethnics (lots of Dutch, Italians and Croatians; 1.1% speak Croatian at home compared to the national average of 0.3%) and suburban families (especially growing fast as a dormitory city of Melbourne).

Just off the top of my head Matt Spiranovic, Adrian Leijer, Josip Skoko, Joey Didulica and Steve Horvat all hail from the area. The Croatian-based North Geelong Warriors have been in the upper echelons of the Victorian State Leagues for donks, and in fact yesterday won promotion to the top division of the NPLV. The Melbourne Knights were even once based in Geelong.

The 300,000 people in the G21 region love their Cats, but they're very parochial for their city in general and would, like regional cities across the country, get behind anything representing them on the national level.

The possibility of co-branding exists with the Cats; their semi-pro basketball team is called the Geelong Supercats and no one seems to mind.

The current mayor of Geelong, Darryn Lyons, has stated he will back a Geelong team: "Whatever I was asked to do. I'd do 100 per cent." Granted, that interview was given in his past life as a multi millionaire, but clearly his love of the city is stronger than ever, and owing to his past business experience he is perhaps the most uniquely positioned Australian public official to fully appreciate the global commercial power of football.

TL;DR: Geelong A2-League team, plz.

Edited by paladisious: 15/9/2014 12:26:38 AM

:lol:

Top effort ricecrackers.

Ballymore is a personal favorite of mine. The old atmosphere at the QLD reds games was brilliant - beer in hand snugged up on the XXXX hill.

Roar pre-season games and some state rugby union matches is about as much use as it gets these days. Would love to see some of the lower-key roar matches played here on a friday or saturday night (e.g. roar vs wellington or perth).

Ballymore > Suncorp. Might be trickier to get to but Suncorp is a behemoth that is never even half filled bar Grand Finals , Internationals and Origin. At least ballymore is guaranteed to be a cracking atmosphere with standing room behind the goals.

Key word; place is falling to bits.

Edited by paladisious: 15/9/2014 12:34:24 AM

The Olympiastadion is narrower than Kardinia Park by some 10m.

Luzhniki Stadium is being remodelled internally and will be rectangular format with the new stands close to the pitch.

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=615378&page=28

Edited by gyfox: 15/9/2014 08:56:00 AM

Go down the Kardina Park three or four times every year and it it a top notch ground...apart from the northern stands. Realistically it is about as good as you can get for an oval, if it was up to me I would be pushing the pitch as close to the players stand as possible and just close off the anything north of the brownlow stand. The good thing about the Players stand is the front row is elevated a metre high so even if you are a distance away from the pitch you can still see over the advertising. I can see in the future a situation where Geelong can host a team averaging 7-10k crowds, they already have the stadium all they need now is a huge grassroots push and a financial backer.

The northern stands were great for the Muangthong game, nice and open up the back compared to Etihad and the view was fine for an oval ground bar the AFC advertising boards. If FFA/AFC/MVFC weren't pricks and opened up the standing area at the back it would have been perfect.

Isn't kardinia getting a second redevelopment sooner rather than later for the ablett and brownlow stands?

Labor have promised to replace the Brownlow and Jennings stands if they win the election to bring the capacity up to 36,000.

They have also promised a 15,000 capacity oval for Ballarat.

Edited by imonfourfourtwo: 15/9/2014 10:39:32 AM

We all know which one you prefer :lol:
But that 15K ground would have to be the northern oval wouldn't it?