East Melbourne Cricket Ground

East Melbourne Cricket Ground
Circa. 1879
Location East Melbourne, Victoria
Surface Grass
Construction
Opened 1860
Closed 1921
Demolished 1922
Tenants
East Melbourne Cricket Club (unknown–1921)
East Melbourne Football Club (1878–1882)
Essendon Football Club (1882–1921)
Melbourne City Football Club (1912–1913)

The East Melbourne Cricket Ground was a grass oval sports venue located at the corner of Wellington Parade and Jolimont Parade, in East Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.[1] Now part of Yarra Park and being adjacent to the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the site is most well known for playing host to many sporting events during the city of Melbourne's early existence, consisting mainly of Cricket & Australian Rules Football, and occasionally Association Football (soccer).

History

The ground was opened in 1860 and closed in 1921. It adjoined the Melbourne Cricket Ground and was not far from the Richmond Cricket Ground, all three grounds being sited in the area formerly known as Captain Lonsdale's Cow Paddock, now Yarra Park.[1]

Cricket

East Melbourne Cricket Club was the most successful member of the Victorian Cricket Association during the 19th Century and early 20th Century, winning more than half of the VCA's Premierships during that period. The club was formed in 1857 as the Abbotsford Cricket Club but they soon changed their name as part of a putsch to use the East Melbourne ground. The team mainly consisted of Scotch College old boys.

Four first-class cricket games were played at the ground in the 1880s, including the Smokers v Non-Smokers match, in which the Non-Smokers made 803, at the time a world record innings score.

Season Teams Date Result Ref
1880–81 Victoria v South Australia 12–13, 15 November 1880 Victoria won by 7 wickets [2]
1882–83 Victoria v South Australia 24, 26–27 March 1883 Victoria won by an innings and 98 runs [3]
1886–87 Smokers v Non-Smokers 17–19, 21 March 1887 Match drawn [4]
1888–89 Victoria v Tasmania 1–5 January 1889 Victoria won by 9 wickets [5]

Association Football (Soccer)

Occasionally, association football (soccer) was played at the oval. The most well known use for the sport were the interstate representative matches between the states of Victoria and New South Wales in the 1880s. Four matches were played between 1883 and 1887 with three taking place at the East Melbourne Cricket Ground with the other being played at the South Melbourne Cricket Ground that ended in a nil-all draw. [6]

Date Teams Result Attendance Ref
16 August 1883 Victoria v New South Wales 2 - 2 2000 [7]
16 July 1885 Victoria v New South Wales 4 - 0 600 [8]
16 July 1887 Victoria v New South Wales 2 - 2 300 [9]

Australian Rules Football

Early Carlton champion George Coulthard running with the ball against Geelong during the 1880 VFA season on 17 July

The oval was used for Australian rules football games during the winter months. The ground hosted the first-ever interstate representative football match, on 1 July 1879, between Victoria (represented by the VFA) and South Australia. The match was attended by more than 10,000 people. It also hosted the first intercollegiate football match in Melbourne, played on 21 July 1881 between teams from the University of Melbourne colleges Trinity and Ormond.[10]

Tenant football clubs of the ground included:

As a venue for football, the East Melbourne Cricket Ground had an unusual quirk that the field sloped downhill towards the railway end, but was often affected by a strong wind which blew to the pavilion end.[13]

The largest football crowds seen at the venue were for Victorian Football Association finals matches. An estimated crowd of 25,000 saw the 1907 VFA Final, played between Williamstown and West Melbourne.[14] The record for a VFL match was 18,000, set twice during the 1921 VFL season.

Closure

After the 1921 football season, the ground was closed and then demolished to make way for an extension of the Jolimont Yard railway sidings.[15]

When the East Melbourne Cricket Club lost the use of the ground in 1921, it amalgamated with the Hawthorn Cricket Club to form the Hawthorn-East Melbourne Cricket Club, and moved to Hawthorn's Glenferrie Oval. One of the wooden stands was moved from East Melbourne to Glenferrie Oval where it stood until 1965 when it was replaced by the Dr A.S. Ferguson Stand.

After the Essendon Football Club lost the use of the ground, it moved to the Essendon Recreation Reserve; however, it had initially tried to move to the North Melbourne Recreation Reserve, resulting in a major off-field political struggle between the Essendon Association and North Melbourne Football Clubs, the VFL and the VFA.

The former site of the ground has now been taken over by a housing estate, a feature of which is a semi-circular housing block with a tower obviously designed to look like an ersatz football pavilion. The oval is now a park.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Santo Caruso, Marc Fiddian and Jim Main, Football Grounds of Melbourne (Melbourne: Pennon Publishing, 2002 ISBN 978-1877029028.
  2. ↑ "Victoria v South Australia, 1880–81". ESPNcricinfo. ESPN Inc. Retrieved 24 November 2013.
  3. ↑ "Victoria v South Australia, 1882–83". ESPNcricinfo. ESPN Inc. Retrieved 24 November 2013.
  4. ↑ "Smokers v Non-Smokers, 1886–87". ESPNcricinfo. ESPN Inc. Retrieved 24 November 2013.
  5. ↑ "Victoria v Tasmania, 1888–89". ESPNcricinfo. ESPN Inc. Retrieved 24 November 2013.
  6. ↑ http://www.ozfootball.net/ark/MiscGames/1883SR/State02.html
  7. ↑ http://www.ozfootball.net/ark/MiscGames/1883SR/State01.html
  8. ↑ http://www.ozfootball.net/ark/MiscGames/1885SR/State01.html
  9. ↑ http://www.ozfootball.net/ark/MiscGames/1887SR/State01.html
  10. ↑ 'Football', The Argus, 21 July 1881, p. 6
  11. ↑ "Football – the Victorian Football League". The Argus. Melbourne. 13 April 1897. p. 6.
  12. ↑ "Football – Victorian League – Question of Grounds". The Argus. Melbourne. 28 March 1907. p. 4.
  13. ↑ Old Boy (11 October 1920). "Footscray premiers – success of the unbeatable". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 11.
  14. ↑ "Final – Williamstown v. West Melbourne". North Melbourne Courier and West Melbourne Chronicle. Melbourne. 4 October 1907. p. 3.
  15. ↑ "Flinders Street Yard – why the cricket ground is needed". The Argus. Melbourne. 1 December 1920. p. 11.


Coordinates: 37°49′2″S 144°58′40″E / 37.81722°S 144.97778°E / -37.81722; 144.97778

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