Ah, the romantic appeal of the impossible dream...

Correct, last time we did was also the Jets first "home" game against City with Tim Cahill so a monumental stuff up for us there - good for Port though. 

We also played in Port another time around 2010 when the "Crusty Demons" or one of the other petrol-head bogan persuits completely f#@ked the ground at MJ Stadium. 

I think they played at Port Macquarie. But all the medium towns along that coast have decent little stadiums . Coffs is famous for the 31 - 0 game 

Didn’t Jets already play a game there?

Seems like a good place to host Jets v Roar.
(If clubs’ don’t want to host at home)

I forgot all about Olympic Village upgraded. Hope it is good for Hiedleburg. 

My mum and dad recently retired to Coffs Harbour in northern NSW. Their stadium is pretty good for a sub 100k town. 

Recently added two new grandstands to complete a stand all the down one side. And refurbished the existing stand. Upgrade cost about $15M I think. 


https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcSukghyVe6YtqImnbXX6BKualJL_8lJIubGBLGGp58yvomU9HFi&usqp=CAU

Yeah they're all trash.

Really? What about Horse Racing, Horse Jumping, etc. etc 
Or is it only working class sports that you dislike?

Greyhound racing - the lowest of the low of human "sporting" behaviour.

A holding pen for the least redeemable members of society.

Yeah what an utter waste. How goods abandoning a football asset just to rent a stadium that was 2-3 times to big. It could have been great for the Jets if they could have just held onto it.

"On the western edge of Newcastle, rising out of the swamp, there's a field of broken dreams. At least that's the way Con Mitsios sees it.

After decades of back-breaking manual labour his pride and joy - Breakers Stadium - went to the dogs. Literally. What was once a showpiece for football in the Hunter has become a greyhound track.

It's been that way since 2005 - five years after Newcastle Breakers collapsed under the weight of their debts. History tells us Con Constantine took possession of the license but not the stadium - choosing instead to move the team back to what's now known as Hunter Stadium, and calling his new team the Jets.

For Mitsios, that was the beginning of the end. One of the founders of the Newcastle Australs club which bought the site next to a scrap metal yard in 1965 and turned it into one of the better venues in the old NSL, he could scarcely believe it when he heard it was ultimately sold for a knockdown price of $1million. ''Such a waste,'' he laments.

Volunteer labour (''we were there for breakfast, and we were still there for dinner'') created something out of nothing at Birmingham Gardens. It's a story replicated throughout football's post-war boom. Ethnic communities - in this case a coalition of migrants from the Greta camp near Maitland - brought together by their common love of football, and their willingness to put their time, and money, into creating bricks and mortar for the game.

But for Mitsios and those who formed the club called Australs which ultimately became the Breakers, all that heart and soul eventually counted for nothing. When the club began to struggle, Mitsios asked Northern NSW Football to purchase the site and keep it in the 'family'. Nobody wanted to listen. "

https://www.newcastlejets.com.au/news/broken-dreams-hunter

A little ironic that a perfectly good rectangular stadium
was converted from rectangular into a greyhound stadium. 

Yes, now primarly a greyhound track but one of the local clubs Wallsend FC (one below NPL) uses it as a home ground as well.

Basically no public transport or parking and the location is not ideal (near Shortland Wetlands so mozzie central in Summer) to be a serious contender for a future A-League venue. However I did find an article from 2016 when the Jets were looking at it as a home base/training ground (with some pics from the NSL and Super League days).

Bit of info on the stadium here 

Does the old stadium that the Breakers used still exist?

Agree. Cannot see an a-league team working in Tassie, however if the AFL don't give them a team, maybe the locals will jump on the wagon for a local A-league team?

A Tasmanian team would be CCM but worse.  There's no money in the state, anyway, and what there is goes to the AFL.  Never going to happen in Tassie.

I wouldn't call a $250M stadium boutique :)
https://www.cowboys.com.au/news/2020/03/20/showreel-stadium-opening/
In fact I can't think of another <200K city on this planet with a nicer stadium.

There are football grounds that are a nice size but in Queensland's case many of them are in regional cities where it's unlikely an A-League team would be viable. ie: Sunshine Coast, Mackay. Perry Park or Langlands Park would be ideal locations for a 10-15K seat stadium in Brisbane but there is no appetite from the State Gov or BCC to upgrade them.

I doubt Olympic Village will have added seating as the lack of demand for it doesn’t warrant it.
It certainly has the space to do so though.

Even before the renos I thought the viewing was fine with the undercover section even though it had a running track on it.

Me personally, I would rather we have no club from Tasmania if it meant they're playing out of a stadium not suitable. 

Either build a new 10k seater or even 10k capacity, or develope an existing rectangular stadium. 

Unless you used a cricket ground the biggest rectangle is only 4000 capacity. Even then, there is little seating at any Tasmanian rectangles. Most is standing only.

I wouldn't give Tasmania a team if they plan to play out of one of their existing AFL suited stadiums. 

If on the other hand they could play out of a rectangular stadium, even with 10k capacity to start off with, I'd give them a team straight away. 

Tassie deserves a licence plus we need to get in before AFL does and have their own team Tasmania team. Now is the time to do it! No more excuses FFA just hurry up and do it!!!

Any plans for Hobart to build or renovate a rectangular ground.. if they could build something down there they would be a shoe in for license!!

The Olympic village for Heidelberg United looks great.. will it have added seating?
what other grounds around Australia could be converted into ALeague boutique grounds?
must be heaps of rugby grounds in NSW and QLD that could be used?
Canberra are looking at building a new stadium I think and I have seen Townsville have built and amazing boutique stadium... if only the FFA could make a team work up there again.

It’s a pipe dream of course but would love Melb City to jump into bed with the Warriors and upgrade Olympic Village.
There is plenty room for stands at as the FFA cup showed, it can comfortably host 13k which coped with traffic fine on a night fixture

McDonald Jones Stadium is great when a good crowd is in (still needs the ends seated though), but for the Jets on a stinking hot Sunday arvo against Wellington it's vastly oversized.

The W-League and Youth team have made No.2 Sportsground home in the last few years and with some work this could make a good home for the Mens team. It's council owned but the local Rugby scene has contributed some funds to renovate it previously and hence think they own it - but Rugby will be dead soon so don't think this is much of an issue. 

It's much closer to the CBD of Newcastle (some would argue it is in the CBD), close to transport and walking distance to the Honeysuckle area for pre/post match activities (not forgetting King St Maccas, KFC and Dan Murphy's of course). Capacity 12,000ish would be ideal.

Set up for a W-League game:



Parking situation would need to be improved, but Moore Park is no different there (older pic).



It's recently had some more seating added on the grandstand side but I'd like to see it done up to be something like Hindmarsh or Toyota Field in San Antonio (all the way around though, 3 sided stadiums are shite).



Of course I'm completely aware this is pie-in-the-sky dreamland stuff.

The upgrade at Heidelbergs Olympic Village is well underway. Running track and the hills behind the goal are gone. 

There's an opinion surprising absoloutely no one............

Oh come on. It's a tin pot shit hole.

100%, also many are on western rail lines so going home at night is quite scary

Really? I could only name one person I know who drives to Vuck games and that bloke is in the Chairman's lounge every game. That said, all my vuck mates are meeting at the pub before and after so it would be pretty daft to drive.