The
Melbourne Cricket Ground is the is the largest and most famous sporting arena in
Australia. It currently has a seating capacity of just over 98,000 and is home to annual major sporting events such as the
Australian Football League Grand Final and the
Boxing Day test match. It also regularly plays host to concerts - artists such as
Madonna, the
Rolling Stones,
Michael Jackson and
U2 have performed there.
The MCG is found in the suburb of East Melbourne or Jolimont and is situated in a large park which serves as a parking lot on match days. The MCG is owned by the City of Melbourne, but managed by the sinister Melbourne Cricket Club. In order to join this exclusive group the prospective member must pay an annual fee for a minimum twenty-five years, just to hold their place in line. The members' stand is always skipped during Mexican waves.
State-of-Origin rugby league and international rugby union matches have in recent years been played at the MCG. Despite Melburnians not generally being rugby fans, the MCG holds the world record for both the largest rugby league and rugby union crowds - 87,000 and 91,000 respectively. Occasionally, international soccer matches are also played at the stadium, and these too prove popular - recent games include the Iran-Australia qualifier for the 1998 World Cup and a France-Australia friendly. During the Sydney Olympic Games of 2000, the MCG played host to several soccer qualifying matches.
Even for regular home-and-away Australian Rules football games, such as the traditional Collingwood-Essendon ANZAC Day match, the ground is often full. The MCG is the home ground for the AFL clubs Collingwood, Melbourne, Richmond, Essendon, and the Kangaroos.
Both one day and test cricket matches are regularly played at the MCG, which also holds the world attendance record for cricket - 90,600 for the first day of an Australia vs West Indies test in 1961.
The MCG is home to a museum of Australian sport, open daily. Tours of the ground are held every day between 9.30am and 4pm. On average, there is a sporting match of some kind every four days at the MCG.
History
The location of the MCG was known as the "Police Paddock" until the governor of Victoria Joseph La Trobe granted the location to the Melbourne Cricket Club in 1853, and the following year the MCG hosted its first first cricket match. In 1877, it hosted the first ever international cricket match, Australia versus England.
Following the invention of Australian Rules in 1859, football began to be played at the ground although until the 1880s access was restircted due to the dislike of some MCC members for the game. In 1879 the first game of night football was played, but this did not become a regular event until the 1960s. Various other sports, such as lawn bowls and baseball, were also played at the ground by MCC members at various times. Gridiron and lacrosse exhibition matches featuring sportsmen from the USA and Canada took place in the early years of last century.
In 1956 Melbourne played host to the Olympic Games and of course the MCG, now with a capacity of about 110,000 following the construction of the Olympic Stand, was the main sporting arena used. During the course of the games an exhibition match of baseball was for some reason played, attracting 102,000 curious spectators - the world's largest ever crowd for that sport. An Australian Rules exhibition match (between representatives of the VFA, now the VFL, and the VFL, now known as the AFL) was also played, reportedly amusing Prince Philip mightily.
In 1959 the famous American evangelist Christian Billy Graham visited Melbourne, managing to pull a crowd of an estimated 130,000 people - the all-time largest crowd at the ground.
In 1982 the MCG's first electronic scoreboard was installed, followed three years later by new floodlights - the tallest in the world.
The largest ever recorded sporting crowd at the MCG was 121,696 at a Carlton vs Collingwood AFL Grand Final - also the largest ever Australian Rules crowd. The ground's official capacity has fluctuated greatly, but peaked prior to the renovations to the old Bay 13, now known as the Great Southern Stand, which was completed in 1992. Proposed renovations to the Olympic (or Northern) and Ponsford stands are tipped to increase the capacity of the ground by a few thousand seats, mostly in the form of corporate boxes. Funding for this new development has run into problems, with the (right-wing) Federal Workplace Relations minister Tony Abbott refusing to hand over about $A90 million to the (centerist) State government for matters relating to industrial conditions and Trade Union demands.
Contact details:
Address:
Yarra Park
Jolimont, 3002
Victoria
Australia
Melways ref. 2G D7 ; 44 B10
Phone: 61 3 9657 8867
Fax: 61 3 9256 8840
All attendance figures from the MCG's official website, http://www.mcg.org.au/history/news2.htm.