1.
Princes Park, Carlton
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Princes Park is a 38.6 hectare park in the inner-Melbourne suburb of Carlton North, Victoria. It is located north of the University of Melbourne and bounded on its eastern and western sides by Melbourne General Cemetery. The park also contains a playground, the ‘Within Three Worlds’ sculpture. The Capital City Trail passes through the section of the park. In January 2006 and 2007 Big Day Out was held at Princes Park on the ovals at the southern end. The events traditional venue, the Royal Melbourne Showgrounds was unavailable due to redevelopment and it is 3.2 kilometres to travel the dirt track around the park
2.
Melbourne
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Melbourne is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in Australia and Oceania. The name Melbourne refers to an urban agglomeration spanning 9,900 km2, the metropolis is located on the large natural bay of Port Phillip and expands into the hinterlands towards the Dandenong and Macedon mountain ranges, Mornington Peninsula and Yarra Valley. It has a population of 4,641,636 as of 2016, and its inhabitants are called Melburnians. Founded by free settlers from the British Crown colony of Van Diemens Land on 30 August 1835, in what was then the colony of New South Wales, it was incorporated as a Crown settlement in 1837. It was named Melbourne by the Governor of New South Wales, Sir Richard Bourke, in honour of the British Prime Minister of the day, William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne. It was officially declared a city by Queen Victoria, to whom Lord Melbourne was close, in 1847, during the Victorian gold rush of the 1850s, it was transformed into one of the worlds largest and wealthiest cities. After the federation of Australia in 1901, it served as the interim seat of government until 1927. It is a financial centre in the Asia-Pacific region. It is recognised as a UNESCO City of Literature and a centre for street art, music. It was the host city of the 1956 Summer Olympics and the 2006 Commonwealth Games, the main passenger airport serving the metropolis and the state is Melbourne Airport, the second busiest in Australia. The Port of Melbourne is Australias busiest seaport for containerised and general cargo, Melbourne has an extensive transport network. The main metropolitan train terminus is Flinders Street Station, and the regional train. Melbourne is also home to Australias most extensive network and has the worlds largest urban tram network. Before the arrival of settlers, humans had occupied the area for an estimated 31,000 to 40,000 years. At the time of European settlement, it was inhabited by under 2000 hunter-gatherers from three indigenous tribes, the Wurundjeri, Boonwurrung and Wathaurong. The area was an important meeting place for the clans of the Kulin nation alliance and it would be 30 years before another settlement was attempted. Batman selected a site on the bank of the Yarra River. Batman then returned to Launceston in Tasmania, in early August 1835 a different group of settlers, including John Pascoe Fawkner, left Launceston on the ship Enterprize
3.
Victoria (Australia)
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Victoria is a state in southeast Australia. Victoria is Australias most densely populated state and its second-most populous state overall, most of its population is concentrated in the area surrounding Port Phillip Bay, which includes the metropolitan area of its state capital and largest city, Melbourne, Australias second-largest city. Prior to British European settlement, the area now constituting Victoria was inhabited by a number of Aboriginal peoples. With Great Britain having claimed the entire Australian continent east of the 135th meridian east in 1788, Victoria was included in the wider colony of New South Wales. The first settlement in the area occurred in 1803 at Sullivan Bay, and much of what is now Victoria was included in the Port Phillip District in 1836, Victoria was officially created as a separate colony in 1851, and achieved self-government in 1855. Politically, Victoria has 37 seats in the Australian House of Representatives and 12 seats in the Australian Senate, at state level, the Parliament of Victoria consists of the Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council. Victoria is currently governed by the Labor Party, with Daniel Andrews the current Premier, the personal representative of the Queen of Australia in the state is the Governor of Victoria, currently Linda Dessau. Local government is concentrated in 79 municipal districts, including 33 cities, although a number of unincorporated areas still exist, Victorias total gross state product is ranked second in Australia, although Victoria is ranked fourth in terms of GSP per capita because of its limited mining activity. Culturally, Melbourne is home to a number of museums, art galleries and theatres and is described as the sporting capital of Australia. The Melbourne Cricket Ground is the largest stadium in Australia, and the host of the 1956 Summer Olympics, Victoria has eight public universities, with the oldest, the University of Melbourne, having been founded in 1853. Victoria, like Queensland, was named after Queen Victoria, who had been on the British throne for 14 years when the colony was established in 1851. The first British settlement in the later known as Victoria was established in October 1803 under Lieutenant-Governor David Collins at Sullivan Bay on Port Phillip. In the year 1826 Colonel Stewart, Captain S. Wright, fly and the brigs Dragon and Amity, took a number of convicts and a small force composed of detachments of the 3rd and 93rd regiments. Victorias next settlement was at Portland, on the south west coast of what is now Victoria, edward Henty settled Portland Bay in 1834. Melbourne was founded in 1835 by John Batman, who set up a base in Indented Head, from settlement the region around Melbourne was known as the Port Phillip District, a separately administered part of New South Wales. Shortly after the now known as Geelong was surveyed by Assistant Surveyor W. H. Smythe. And in 1838 Geelong was officially declared a town, despite earlier white settlements dating back to 1826, days later, still in 1851 gold was discovered near Ballarat, and subsequently at Bendigo. Later discoveries occurred at sites across Victoria
4.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
5.
City of Melbourne
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The City of Melbourne is a local government area in Victoria, Australia, located in the central city area of Melbourne. The city has an area of 36 square kilometres and has a population of 127,672, the citys motto is Vires acquirit eundo which means She gathers strength as she goes. The current Lord Mayor is Robert Doyle, the Melbourne City Council holds office in Melbourne Town Hall. Unlike other Australian capital cities, Melbourne did not originate under official auspices, having been a province of New South Wales from its establishment in 1835, affairs of the settlement had been administered by the Parliament of New South Wales. With the growth of the settlement there had been a demand by the inhabitants for greater autonomy over their own affairs. On 12 August 1842, Melbourne was incorporated as a town by Act 6 Victoria No.7 of the Governor and Legislative Council of New South Wales. The town of Melbourne was raised to the status of a city by Letters Patent of Queen Victoria dated 25 June 1847, the Letters Patent also constituted the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne and declared Melbourne a cathedral city. The citys initial boundaries, as set down in Act 8 Victoria No, on 18 December 1902, King Edward VII conferred the title Lord Mayor on the mayor of the City of Melbourne. On 30 October 1905, Melbourne absorbed two neighbouring council areas, now included in the City was the Borough of Flemington and Kensington which had been formed in 1882 when it broke away from the City of Essendon. The second, the Town of North Melbourne, formerly known as Hotham, had established on 30 September 1859. Both town halls are still in use today as public buildings—the former in Kensington near the present-day Newmarket railway station, the Melbourne and Geelong Corporations Act 1938 allowed for three councillors for each of the eleven wards, with a general election held on 24 August 1939. Following a recommendation by the Local Government Advisory Board in 1978, three years later, an additional ward was added. The wards were abolished in 2001, with the council having an elected Lord Mayor with a Deputy Lord Mayor, in 2012, the number of Councillors was increased to nine, in addition to the Lord Mayor and Deputy Lord Mayor. In 2005, the announced the construction of a new 6-star environmental office building, Council House 2. In July 2009, Lord Mayor Robert Doyle unveiled a new identity for the City of Melbourne. Melbourne City Council is composed of eleven Councillors, including the Lord Mayor, both the Lord Mayor and Deputy Lord Mayor are directly elected, while the nine other Councillors are elected proportionally as a single ward. Voting entity eligibility includes various classes of business interests, in addition to residents and they are, Some other local councils in the Melbourne metropolitan area have sister city relationships, see Local Government Areas of Victoria
6.
Carlton Football Club
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The Carlton Football Club, nicknamed the Blues, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Melbourne, Victoria. Founded in 1864 in Carlton, an suburb of Melbourne, the club competes in the Australian Football League. Its nickname comes from the blue colour of its playing uniform. The club has fielded a team in the AFL Womens league since its establishment in 2017. Carlton has had a long and successful history, together with fierce rivals Collingwood, Richmond and Essendon, Carlton was considered historically to be one of the leagues Big Four clubs, and enjoys a healthy rivalry with all three others. The Carlton Football Club was formed in July 1864, in the early days, Carlton became particularly strong and having grown a large supporter base. It became a rival to the Melbourne Football Club in early competition, including the South Yarra Challenge Cup. Carlton won four premierships during the era in the 1870s. In 1877, Carlton became one of the clubs of the Victorian Football Association. He died of tuberculosis in 1883, aged 27, in spite of this, the club was invited to join the breakaway Victorian Football League competition in 1897. The club continued to struggle in early seasons of the new competition, Carltons fortunes improved significantly in 1902. The Board elected the highly respected former Fitzroy footballer and Australian test cricketer Jack Worrall, then the secretary of the Carlton Cricket Club, to the same position at the football club. As secretary, Worrall slowly took over the managing of the players, under Worralls guidance in the latter part of the 1902 season, Carltons on-field performances improved, and in 1903 he led Carlton to the finals for the first time. Carlton built a reputation and financial position, and was able to convince many great players to shift to the club from other clubs. Worrall led the club to its first three VFL premierships, won consecutively, in 1906,1907 and 1908, some players had become frustrated by low payments and hard training standards, and responded by refusing to train or even play matches. The club removed Worrall from the role, and after significant changes at board level after the 1909 season. Many players who had supported Worrall left the club at the end of the season, then, in 1910, several players were suspected of having taken bribes to fix matches, with two players both found guilty and suspended for 99 matches. Despite this backdrop, Carlton continued its strong form, reaching the 1909 and 1910 Grand Finals
7.
Seating capacity
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Seating capacity is the number of people who can be seated in a specific space, in terms of both the physical space available, and limitations set by law. Seating capacity can be used in the description of anything ranging from an automobile that seats two to a stadium that seats hundreds of thousands of people. The International Fire Code, portions of which have adopted by many jurisdictions, is directed more towards the use of a facility than the construction. It specifies, For areas having fixed seating without dividing arms and it also requires that every public venue submit a detailed site plan to the local fire code official, including details of the means of egress, seating capacity, arrangement of the seating. Once safety considerations have been satisfied, determinations of seating capacity turn on the size of the venue. For sports venues, the decision on maximum seating capacity is determined by several factors, chief among these are the primary sports program and the size of the market area. Seating capacity of venues also plays a role in what media they are able to provide, in contracting to permit performers to use a theatre or other performing space, the seating capacity of the performance facility must be disclosed. Seating capacity may influence the kind of contract to be used, the seating capacity must also be disclosed to the copyright owner in seeking a license for the copyrighted work to be performed in that venue. Venues that may be leased for private functions such as ballrooms and auditoriums generally advertise their seating capacity, seating capacity is also an important consideration in the construction and use of sports venues such as stadiums and arenas. The seating capacity for restaurants is reported as covers, a restaurant that can seat 99 is said to have 99 covers, seating capacity differs from total capacity, which describes the total number of people who can fit in a venue or in a vehicle either sitting or standing. Use of the term public capacity indicates that a venue is allowed to more people than it can actually seat. Again, the total number of people can refer to either the physical space available or limitations set by law
8.
Australian Football League
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The Australian Football League is the pre-eminent professional competition in the sport of Australian rules football. Through the AFL Commission, the AFL also serves as the governing body. The league was founded as the Victorian Football League as a breakaway from the previous Victorian Football Association, the league currently consists of 18 teams spread over five of Australias six states. Matches have been played in all states and territories of Australia. The AFL season currently consists of a competition, followed by a 23-round regular season. The top eight teams play off in a four-round finals series, culminating in the AFL Grand Final. The winning team in the Grand Final is termed the premiers, the current premiers are the Western Bulldogs. The six clubs invited two more VFA clubs – Carlton and St Kilda – to join the league for its season in 1897. In 1908, the league expanded to ten teams, with Richmond crossing from the VFA, Port Adelaide was the most successful club of the competition winning three titles during the period along with an earlier victory. In 1925, the VFL expanded from nine teams to twelve, with Footscray, Hawthorn, North Melbourne and Hawthorn remained very weak in the VFL for a very long period. Between the years of 1927 and 1930, Collingwood became the first, in 1952, the VFL hosted National Day, when all six matches were played outside of Melbourne. Matches were played at the Sydney Cricket Ground, Brisbane Exhibition Ground, North Hobart Oval, Albury Sports Ground and Victorian country towns Yallourn, Footscray became the first of the 1925 expansion teams to win the premiership in 1954. Melbourne became a powerhouse during the 1950s and early 1960s under coach Norm Smith, the club contested seven consecutive grand finals from 1954 to 1960, winning five premierships, including three in a row from 1955 to 1957. Television coverage began in 1957, with telecasts of the final quarter permitted. At first, several channels competed through broadcasting different games, however, when the VFL found that television was reducing crowds, it decided that no coverage was to be allowed for 1960. In 1961, replays were introduced although direct telecasts were rarely permitted in Melbourne, in 1959, the VFL planned the first purpose built mega-stadium, VFL Park, to give it some independence from the Melbourne Cricket Club, which managed the Melbourne Cricket Ground. VFL Park was planned to hold 155,000 spectators, which would have made it one of the largest stadiums in the world – although it would ultimately be built with a capacity of 78,000. Land for the stadium was purchased at Mulgrave, then farmland, the VFL Premiership Trophy was first awarded in addition to a pennant flag in 1959, essentially the same trophy design has been in use since
9.
Fitzroy Football Club
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The club experienced some early success in the league and was the first club to win a VFL Grand Final. It also achieved a total of eight VFL premierships between 1898 and 1944, and more recently two VAFA promotions in 2009 and 2012. Despite this, the club survived in its own right and The Fitzroy Football Club Ltd came out of administration after the merger of its AFL playing operations in late 1998. For a brief time it experimented in partnerships with other semi professional, Fitzroy largely resumed its original VFL-AFL identity through its continued use of their 1975–1996 VFL-AFL jumper, their theme song and their 1884–1966 home ground at the Brunswick Street Oval. Fitzroy began in the D1 section of the VAFA in 2009 and it is notable for being the only club to have played in the VFA, VFL, AFL and VAFA competitions of Australian Rules football. In 2015 Fitzroy fielded its first womens team under the name of Fitzroy-ACU in partnership with the Australian Catholic University, in 2016, Fitzroy-ACU fielded two womens teams in the Victorian Womens Football League VWFL. From 2017, all Fitzroy teams play in the VAFA with the playing in the VAFAs Inaugural womens competition. The Fitzroy Football Club was formed at a meeting at the Brunswick Hotel on 26 September 1883, Fitzroys season-by-season records throughout its thirteen seasons at VFA level are given below. In 1897, Fitzroy were one of the eight clubs who broke away from the VFA to form the Victorian Football League, Fitzroy was the most successful club in the first 10 years of the VFL, winning four premierships and finishing runners-up on three occasions. In contrast, the 1916 Fitzroy team only won 2 home and away matches, all four teams qualified for the finals, and Fitzroy won their next three games to win one of the strangest VFL premierships. The Maroons won their premiership in 1922, a year season which included four very rough games against eventual runners-up Collingwood. However, after this their fortunes waned, and they did not make the finals at all from 1925 to 1942 and it was during this time that the Maroons became known as the Gorillas. Football was less affected by World War II than it had been in 1916 and it was in this year, under captain-coach Fred Hughson, that the Gorillas won their eighth VFL flag against Richmond in front of a capacity crowd at Junction Oval. However, it was also to be their last senior premiership, as the club, by the mid 1960s, Fitzroys traditional home ground the Brunswick Street Oval was in a state of disrepair. Pressure was applied by most VFL clubs, including Fitzroy, to have the ground improved, however, the ground managers were the Fitzroy Cricket Club. The Football Club had to pay the Cricket Club to use the ground, the football club put forward various ideas to try and change the situation, including the amalgamation of the Football and Cricket Clubs to form one club as in the manner of the Carlton Social Club. The Cricket Club held the licence and managed the ground. With a stake in the ground, the club could have better agitated for improvements to the ground by sourcing funds from other organisations such as the VFL
10.
Hawthorn Football Club
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The Hawthorn Football Club, nicknamed the Hawks, is a professional Australian rules football club in the Australian Football League. The club, founded in 1902, is the youngest of the Victorian-based teams in the AFL and has won thirteen VFL/AFL premierships and it is renowned as the only club having won premierships in each decade of the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and 2010s. The team play in brown and gold vertically striped guernseys, the clubs Latin motto is spectemur agendo, the English translation being By our deeds let us be known. The Hawks origins are in the inner-eastern Melbourne suburb of Hawthorn and also at Glenferrie Oval, matches, however, have not been played there since 1973. In 2006, Hawthorns training and administration facilities were relocated to Waverley Park in the middle of the major supporter base in Melbournes outer-eastern region. Hawthorns current Victorian Football League affiliate team is the Box Hill Hawks Football Club, the official club history books and many supporters strongly believe that the clubs origins date back to its founding in 1873 at a meeting at the Hawthorne Hotel. Although a Hawthorn Football Club did indeed form at this time – and it is likely that today’s club is actually the third club to carry the name ‘Hawthorn Football Club’. In The Daily Telegraph of 12 May 1883 it is stated that “The Hawthorn Club having disbanded and this club also ceased in 1890. No Hawthorn club existed from 1890 to 1892, a new representative club, called the ‘Hawthorn Football Club’, was formed in 1893. It competed in the Victorian Junior Football Association until 1898, without a ground to play on, however, the club was disbanded in 1899. In March 1902, Alf Kosky formed a club from the various clubs under the banner of Hawthorn Football Club to compete in the Metropolitan Junior Football Association. The club merged with Boroondara in 1905 and adopted Boroondaras colours of a black guernsey with red sash, in 1906 Hawthorn merged with successful junior club the Hawthorn Rovers to form the Hawthorn City Football Club as a result of Glenferrie Oval opening. The club was reformed in 1912, changing to a gold guernsey with a blue V, the council then applied to the Victorian Football Association for inclusion which was granted in 1914 when Hawthorn replaced the disbanded Melbourne City club. The first task for the club was to decide on club colours, their jumper of blue, at a Special General Meeting held on 17 February 1914, a Mr J. Brain proposed brown and gold as the new colours and the motion was carried. The Mayblooms won three games and a draw in their first season in the VFA, the effect of World War I with players enlisting caused the club to finish last in 1915. The VFA then went into recess in 1916 and 1917, upon Hawthorn’s resumption in 1919 it was more competitive winning eight games and finishing sixth out of ten teams. Hawthorn dropped to eighth in 1920 but in 1921 they won seven games, bill Walton was appointed captain-coach of Hawthorn in 1922. He was however refused a clearance by Port Melbourne and as a result spent the season playing for them, twice that season, he had the unusual situation of playing a VFA game against the club that he coached
11.
Western Bulldogs
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The Western Bulldogs is a professional Australian rules football club that competes in the Australian Football League, the sports premier competition. The club has won two VFL/AFL premierships, in 1954 and 2016, and was runner up in 1961, the Western Bulldogs home guernsey features two thick horizontal hoops—one red and one white—on a royal blue background. The clubs traditional rivals include St Kilda and geographical rival Essendon, the clubs headquarters and training facilities are located in Footscray at Whitten Oval, nicknamed The Kennel, its original home ground. In 1996, the changed its name from the Footscray Football Club to its nickname. Newspapers record Australian rules football being played in the Melbourne suburb of Footscray in the mid-1870s, in 1880, the club changed its name to the Prince Imperials in honour of Napoléon, Prince Imperial, the heir to French throne, who had recently died in battle. The club reverted to Footscray a few years later, in 1886, Footscray gained admission to the Victorian Football Association after amalgamating with the Footscray Cricket Club to form a senior football club. The club tended to struggle over the decade, occupying the lower rungs of the VFA ladder. The club began to improve after the VFL breakaway of 1896, as no finals were played, Footscray were declared premiers. The club played in and won its first finals match in 1903, against Richmond, the minor premiers, after losing to West Melbourne in the 1906 VFA Grand Final, the club won its first premiership by defeating Brunswick in 1908. The club entered two years of recess during World War I and returned in 1918, still rebuilding, the club won the wooden spoon. From bottom to top in one year,1919 saw the win the premiership. The club went back-to-back in 1923 and 1924, the 1924 premiership would be Footscrays last in the VFA. Footscray recorded a victory, winning by 28 points. The win was a significant factor in Footscray gaining admission to the VFL. In 1919, there were nine clubs competing in the VFL, due to the return of all the foundation teams plus Richmond after World War I and this caused one team to be idle every Saturday and the VFL was keen to do away with this bye each week. On the night of 9 January 1925, a meeting of the VFL, chaired by Reg Hunt of Carlton. It was decided in the meeting to admit Footscray, along two other VFA clubs, Hawthorn and North Melbourne. Footscray played their first VFL match against Fitzroy on Saturday 2 May at the Brunswick Street Oval in front of 28,000 spectators, future Brownlow medallist Allan Hopkins was regarded as Footscrays best player that day
12.
Northern Blues
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The Northern Blues are affiliated with the Carlton Blues in the AFL, and play their home games at the Preston City Oval and Ikon Park. The club was established in 1882 as the Preston Football Club, the club participated in the VFA between 1903 and 1912, and then since 1926. After World War II, the club was known as the Bullants, the club later became the Northern Bullants. Ahead of the 2012 season, the club adopted the colours and nickname of its AFL-affiliate, the club was formed in 1882 but little is known of its first three years before the Shire of Jika Jika changed its name in September 1885 to Preston. Preston and another club, Gowerville, then merged and competed at lower levels of the Victorian Junior Football Association. Further premierships followed in 1901 and 1902, no finals being played as Preston finished the two games clear of their nearest rivals to claim the title. Despite a reasonable opening season where they won six games, the club struggled to find players, with Northcote joining the Association in 1908, pressure was applied for the two clubs to merge and the VFA forced the issue early in 1912. Preston were simply promoted before their time, by 1912, the district numbered just 4,800 people spread over 8,800 acres, of the other suburbs represented in the VFA, the next smallest was Brighton with 11,000. Prestons leading player during early VFA days was Sid Hall, a centre half-back regarded as the best high mark in the competition. Despite the lack of success, Preston managed to some fine players to League ranks in Percy Ogden, Hedley Tompkins and Bill Hendrie, Hugh James, Joe Prince, George Doull. Prestons place was taken by Melbourne City who didnt win a game in the two years before they folded, the nucleus of the Preston club returned to the First-Rate Division of the Victorian Junior Football Association. Ogden returned to captain-coach the clun in 1916 and 1917 while Essendon were in recess for the First World Warr, with the loss of North Melbourne, Footscray and Hawthorn to the League in 1925, the Association accepted Preston and Camberwell into their ranks for the 1926 season. The team used their uniform from junior days, a red stripe down the chest and back. This time the club was ready for senior ranks, raising a few eyebrows when they won nine of the 18 games in their first season as well as supplying the Recorder Cup winner, William Bluey Summers. A finals appearance came the year, Prestons first ever senior final finished in a draw with Brighton. Needing to win 12 games straight to ensure a spot, Preston managed to sneak in with 11 wins and a draw. Despite the modest finals record, the club provided the 1934 and 1936 Recorder Cup winners in Danny Warr and Bert Hyde respectively. Leading players up to World War 2 included Summers, Warr, Bert Smith, Frankie Dickie Dowling and Bill Socks Maslen, although he was never a star with Preston, 17-year-old Bert Deacon played his first match in 1940, later becoming Carltons first Brownlow Medallist in 1947
13.
Victorian Football League
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The Victorian Football League is the major state-level Australian rules football league in Victoria. The league evolved from the former Victorian Football Association, and has been known by its current name since 1996. The VFA was formed in 1877 and is the second-oldest Australian rules football league, initially serving a primarily administrative function, the VFA premiership served as the top level of club competition in Victoria until 1896. The VFA became the level of club competition from 1897 after its eight strongest clubs seceded to form the VFL. From 1897 until 1995, the VFA remained independent from the VFL as Victorias secondary senior club competition and it presently comprises 14 teams from throughout Victoria, eight of which have a continuous VFA heritage. The Victorian Football Association was founded on 17 May 1877 at the meeting of club secretaries immediately preceding the 1877 season. Decisions were made based on a vote of the Board of Management, the five foundation senior clubs in the Melbourne metropolitan area were Albert-park, Carlton, Hotham, Melbourne and St Kilda. There was no system of promotion and relegation between the senior and junior levels, with it largely at a clubs discretion whether or not it joined the Association as a paying senior member. The affiliation fee for senior clubs was initially set at one guinea, through the first decade of the VFAs existence, the structure of the football season did not change significantly from the informal system which had evolved over previous years. Premierships won under this method are now considered official. Three Ballarat-based clubs – Ballarat, Ballarat Imperial and South Ballarat – were also voting members of the VFA through this time, the two new competitions competed in parallel from their respective 1897 seasons. Because the VFA was independent from the VFL, the VFA had the power to set its own rules, the VFA reduced the number of on-field players from twenty to eighteen in 1897, a move followed by the VFL two years later. The VFA tried reducing the number of players further to 17 in 1908, then to 16 in 1912, the VFA went into recess during World War I, with the 1916 and 1917 seasons cancelled and the 1915 and 1918 seasons shortened. Over first thirty years of the VFAs independence, its relationship with the VFL was, in general, the loss of the VFAs strongest three clubs to the VFL in 1925 firmly cemented the VFA as the second tier competition in the state. Between 1925 and 1929, the addition of outer suburban clubs in Coburg, Camberwell, the relationship with the VFL improved, and a new permit reciprocity agreement was established in 1931. In 1938, the VFA made a rule change by legalising throwing of the football in general play. The change helped to speed up the game, and introduced more run-and-carry play in an era which had previously dominated by a long-kicking style. Additionally, the VFA ended its agreement with the VFL
14.
Melbourne Rebels
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The Melbourne Rebels are a professional rugby union team based in Melbourne. They made their debut in SANZARs Super Rugby tournament in 2011 and they are the first privately owned professional rugby union team in Australia. The club shares its name with a former Australian Rugby Championship team, the era of professionalism in rugby union led to a restructuring of the Super 10 competition after the 1995 World Cup. SANZAR was formed to manage a 12-team provincial union from Australia, New Zealand, during the early years of 2000s South Africa and Australia pushed for additional teams each. Discussions also included federated pacific island team in the vein of the West Indies cricket team, bids for the 13th and 14th franchise opened in 2002. Melbourne had, to point, successfully hosted several Wallaby test matches which the Victorian Rugby Union used to demonstrate a ground swell of support for rugby union by the Victorian public. Melbourne also hosted several World Cup matches hosted at Docklands Stadium, the then Bracks government promised investment in infrastructure, considering a 25,000 seat redevelopment of Olympic Park Stadium or $100m for a new stadium. The successful bid went to Western Australia, ultimately becoming the Western Force for the 2004 Super 14 season, in 2006 the Australian Rugby Union, following the suggestions of a working party, announced the formation of a national domestic competition. The Melbourne Rebels were established for the season of the Australian Rugby Championship by virtue of NSW surrendering a fourth team in favour of Victoria. Coached by Bill Millard and captained by David Croft, the Rebels finished fourth and were runners up, the move was viewed as an interim step to a Super 14 franchise. The VRU bid twice for a team in SANZARs Super provincial competition before being accepted for the 2011 season and their winning bid was named after the team they fielded in the ARC. On 29 July, at the Victorian Rugby Unions quarterly corporate luncheon, the Melbourne Rebels, with SANZAR announcing a restructure while renegotiating broadcast rights, an additional licence was created. Ten bids were received, seven from Australia, two from New Zealand and the Southern Kings from South Africa. The Australian expressions of interest included three from Victoria, one from Western Sydney, one from the Gold Coast, the New South Wales Country Rugby Union and a second Queensland team. On 12 August 2009, the Australian Rugby Union endorsed Victoria as Australias sole candidate state for the new licence in the Australian conference in the expanded 2011 Super Rugby competition. They attempted to broker a deal that would consolidate the three bids as an entity that they hoped would be overwhelmingly successful. The Melbourne Rebels bid petitioned the ARU to submit one of the three bids to SANZAR. The efforts to amalgamate these bids was fraught with politics, investment banker John Wylie brokered a tentative agreement between the Melbourne Rebels and the Vic Super 15 that was announced at the 2009 Weary Dunlop Luncheon
15.
Super Rugby
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Super Rugby is the preeminent professional mens rugby union football competition in the Southern Hemisphere and Japan. By 2006, matches were being broadcast in 41 countries, SANZAAR is the body that administers Super Rugby, and has the Australian, New Zealand, South African and Argentine rugby unions as its sole members. The organisation was formed in 1995 to establish and run the Super 12, prior to 2011, Super Rugby was a round-robin competition where each team played with every other team once, a team had six or seven home games, and six or seven away games each. The winner received four points, if the game was a draw two points were awarded to each team. The Rugby union bonus points system was used, where any team scoring four or more tries, and/or losing by seven points or less. In 2016, the try bonus changed, a team now has to score three more tries than their opponents. The top four teams at the end of the round-robin phase then played semi-finals – the first placed team hosting the fourth placed team, the two winners then played the final at the home ground of the top surviving seed. There were 91 regular season games in total, games were held over 14 weekends with each team receiving one bye. From 2011 –2015 the format changed, with each country forming its own conference, each team within a conference plays each of the other teams in its conference twice, once at home and once away. Each team then plays four out of the five teams each of the other conferences once. Competition points are awarded on a basis as before. The four lower ranking teams are paired in two sudden death games, the winners of two games each play one of the two top ranked teams. Those winners play for the championship, in 2016 the format changed with three more teams joining. There are four conferences with Africa getting two conferences, the finals now have eight teams with each conference winner getting a home quarter final. They are joined by four wild card teams, three will be from the Australasian group and one from the South African group, before 1996, a number of transnational competitions involving regional and provincial rugby union teams had taken shape in the southern hemisphere. The earliest of these was the South Pacific Championship, which was launched in 1986, after the demise of the South Pacific Championship, with no tournament played in 1991, the competition was relaunched as the Super 6 in 1992. In 1993, the Super Six competition was revamped and expanded into the Super 10 tournament, the inaugural competition featured the following teams, Waikato, Auckland, Otago and North Harbour, Natal, Transvaal and Northern Transvaal, Queensland and New South Wales and Western Samoa. The Super 10 was won by Transvaal in 1993, and by Queensland in 1994 and 1995, the official declaration of professionalism in rugby union in August 1995 led to a restructuring of the Super 10 competition
16.
Australian rules football
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The main way to score points is by kicking the oval-shaped ball between the two tall goal posts. The team with the score by the end of the match wins unless a draw is declared. During general play, players may position themselves anywhere on the field, the primary methods are kicking, handballing and running with the ball. There are rules on how the ball can be handled, for example, throwing the ball is not allowed and players must not get caught holding the ball. A distinctive feature of the game is the mark, where players anywhere on the field who catch a ball from a kick are awarded possession, possession of the ball is in dispute at all times except when a free kick or mark is paid. Players can tackle using their hands or use their body to obstruct opponents. The game features frequent physical contests, spectacular marking, fast movement of players and the ball and high scoring. The sports origins can be traced to matches played in Melbourne, Victoria in 1858. Its annual Grand Final is the highest attended club championship event in the world, the sport is also played at amateur level in many countries and in several variations. The games rules are governed by the AFL Commission with the advice of the AFLs Laws of the Game Committee, there is evidence of football being played sporadically in the Australian colonies in the first half of the 19th century. The earliest such match, held in St Kilda on 15 June, was between Melbourne Grammar and St Kilda Grammar. Born in Australia, Wills played a nascent form of rugby football whilst a pupil at Rugby School in England and his letter is regarded by many historians as giving impetus for the development of a new code of football today known as Australian football. Two weeks later, Wills friend, cricketer Jerry Bryant, posted an advertisement for a match at the Richmond Paddock adjoining the Melbourne Cricket Ground. This was the first of several kickabouts held that year involving members of the Melbourne Cricket Club, including Wills, Bryant, W. J. Hammersley, trees were used as goalposts and play typically lasted an entire afternoon. Without an agreed code of laws, some players were guided by rules they had learned in the British Isles. Another significant milestone in 1858 was a match played under experimental rules between Melbourne Grammar and Scotch College, held at the Richmond Paddock. This 40-a-side contest, umpired by Wills and Scotch College teacher John Macadam, began on 7 August and it is commemorated with a statue outside the MCG, and the two schools have competed annually ever since in the Cordner-Eggleston Cup, the worlds oldest continuous football competition. Since the early 20th century, it has suggested that Australian football was derived from the Irish sport of Gaelic football
17.
Carlton North, Victoria
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Carlton North is an inner suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia,4 km north from Melbournes Central Business District. Its local government areas are the Melbourne and Yarra, at the 2011 Census, Carlton North had a population of 6,220. The suburb is bordered by Princes Street and Cemetery Road to the south, Royal Parade to the west, Nicholson Street to the east, Carlton North is home to the Melbourne General Cemetery and the Princes Park, which contains the Princes Park Football Ground. Its main commercial area is along Rathdowne Street, which has numerous cafés, restaurants, small boutiques, bookshops. Today, Carlton North, like other suburbs of Melbourne, contains a mixture of white-collar professionals, bureaucrats. The area has become more gentrified than Fitzroy North, Brunswick or Collingwood, Carlton North has its origins with the allotment of the Melbourne General Cemetery in 1853. Previous cemetery sites at Flagstaff Gardens and Queen Victoria Market had become full, in the same year a prison stockade, Collingwood Stockade, was built on Lee Street. This subsequently became an asylum until 1873 when it became the areas first primary school, a bluestone quarry was established at what is now Curtain Square. Subdivision into residential blocks began in 1869, with the emerging brick terrace houses standing in contrast to Carltons timber cottages, Princes Park was established in 1844 and became home to the Carlton Football Club in 1864. Tram lines were installed along Lygon Street, Rathdowne Street, the area was also serviced by the Inner Circle railway line. In Carlton North The most common ancestries were English 22. 7%, Australian 18. 6%, Irish 12. 8%, Scottish 8. 9%,69. 6% of people were born in Australia. The most common countries of birth were England 3. 8%, New Zealand 3. 2%, Italy 2. 8%, Malaysia 1. 4% and China 1. 1%.77. 7% of people only spoke English at home. Other languages spoken at home included Italian 5. 3%, Greek 2. 1%, Mandarin 1. 8%, French 0. 8% and Spanish 0. 8%. The most common responses for religion were No Religion 45. 7%, Catholic 22. 2%, Anglican 7. 2%, Eastern Orthodox 3. 0%, the main commercial precincts in Carlton North are the strip on Rathdowne Street and the northern end of Nicholson Street. The most notable businesses in the include the original La Porchetta pizza restaurant. In 2010 St Michaels Anglican Church celebrated its 125th anniversary, Carlton North also has one of the oldest mosques in Melbourne. Originally built by Albanian migrants, it is attended by Muslims during the 5 daily obligatory prayer sessions, Carlton North has a large amount of Victorian and Edwardian era attached and semi-detached terrace houses. Since the 1950s as a result of many of these properties have been renovated
18.
Melbourne Cricket Ground
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The Melbourne Cricket Ground, also known simply as The G, is an Australian sports stadium located in Yarra Park, Melbourne, Victoria. The MCG is within walking distance of the city centre and is served by the Richmond railway station, Richmond, and it is part of the Melbourne Sports and Entertainment Precinct. Since it was built in 1853, the MCG has been in a state of almost constant renewal and it served as the centrepiece stadium of the 1956 Summer Olympics, the 2006 Commonwealth Games and two Cricket World Cups,1992 and 2015. The annual Boxing Day Test is one of the MCGs most popular events, the stadium fills to capacity for the AFL Grand Final. Concerts and other events are also held at the venue. The MCG is listed on the Victorian Heritage Register and was included on the Australian National Heritage List in 2005, journalist Greg Baum called it a shrine, a citadel, a landmark, a totem that symbolises Melbourne to the world. Founded in November 1838 the Melbourne Cricket Club selected the current MCG site in 1853 after previously playing at several grounds around Melbourne, the club’s first game was against a military team at the Old Mint site, at the corner of William and Latrobe Streets. The area was subject to flooding, forcing the club to move again and it was not long before the club was forced out again, this time because of the expansion of the railway. The South Melbourne ground was in the path of Victoria’s first steam railway line from Melbourne to Sandridge and this last option, which is now Yarra Park, had been used by Aborigines until 1835. Between 1835 and 1853 it was an agistment area for colonial troopers’ horses, in 1850 it was part of a 200-acre stretch set aside for public recreation extending from Governor La Trobe’s Jolimont Estate to the Yarra River. By 1853 it had become a busy promenade for Melbourne residents, an MCC sub-committee chose the Richmond Park option because it was level enough for cricket but sloped enough to prevent inundation. That ground was located where the Richmond, or outer, end of the current MCG is now, at the same time the Richmond Cricket Club was given occupancy rights to six acres for another cricket ground on the eastern side of the Government Paddock. At the time of the grant the Government stipulated that the ground was to be used for cricket and cricket only. This condition remained until 1933 when the State Government allowed the MCG’s uses to be broadened to other purposes when not being used for cricket. In 1863 a corridor of land running diagonally across Yarra Park was granted to the Hobson’s Bay Railway, the area closest to the river was also developed for sporting purposes in later years including Olympic venues in 1956. The first grandstand at the MCG was the original wooden stand built in 1854. It was during this tour that the MCG hosted the worlds first Test match, in 1881 the original members stand was sold to the Richmond Cricket Club for £55. A new brick stand, considered at the time to be the world’s finest cricket facility, was built in its place, the foundation stone was laid by Prince George of Wales and Prince Albert Victor on 4 July and the stand opened in December that year
19.
Docklands Stadium
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Docklands Stadium is a multi-purpose sports and entertainment stadium in the Docklands precinct of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Construction started in October 1997 under the name, Victoria Stadium. Also headquartered in the precinct is Seven Networks digital broadcast centre. The stadium was announced on 31 October 1996 as a replacement for the much larger Waverley Park as a headquarters for the Australian Football League. Under the terms of the agreement governing construction and operation of the venue, Docklands Stadium, like Waverley Park, was built primarily for Australian rules football, unlike most grounds of a similar size in Australia which were originally designed for cricket. The first match to be played at the ground was between Essendon and Port Adelaide, before a crowd of 43,012, in Round 1 of the 2000 AFL season, Essendon won the match by 94 points. The stadium was the first stadium in Australia to have movable seating, all four level-one tiers of the stadium can be moved up to 18 metres forward into a rectangular configuration. It was first used for a Melbourne Storm game in July 2001, despite the seating being a key feature of the stadium, it has rarely been used, citing damage to turf, time to deploy the seats and a reduced capacity. Docklands Stadium first featured rugby league football when it was used as the Melbourne Storms home ground for one season in 2001, the Storm continued to play home games at the ground sporadically in the following years. Docklands was also the venue for the third and deciding game of the 2006 State of Origin series, in 2015, LED electronic advertising was added around the perimeter of the ground on level 1 and 2. It was the first time Australia had hosted a round of the SGP event since the round of the 2002 season in Sydney. With stadium capacity capped at 42,000 for the event,26,609 fans saw 45 year old American rider Greg Hancock take out his 20th SGP Final, danish rider Niels-Kristian Iversen finished second with Polands Maciej Janowski finishing third. Reigning Australian Champion Jason Doyle qualified for the final but was outed in a crash in the first turn in which he suffered neck, a fully conscious Doyle was then transported to the Royal Melbourne Hospital for observation. The plan was rejected by the AFL, prior to the start of the 2016 AFL season the seats in the Medallion Club were replaced. The old seats in the Medallion Club section were relocated to areas in the ground. On 7 October 2016, the AFL Commission announced that the league had acquired ownership of the stadium. On 16 August 2000, the first indoor One Day International was held when the Australian cricket team played South Africa in the Super Challenge, the following table summarises the ODI centuries scored at Docklands. Events that have held at the Docklands Stadium include concerts by many famous artists
20.
AFL Grand Final
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The winning club of the grand final receives the AFLs premiership cup and the premiership flag. All players in the team receive a gold premiership medallion. Adelaide is the club to have never lost a grand final which it has contested. The concept of a grand final gradually evolved from experimentation by the Victorian Football League in the years of competition following its inception in 1897. During the 19th century, Australian football competition adopted the approach that the team on top of the ladder was declared the premiers. However, the fledgling VFL decided that a series played between the top four teams at the end of the season would generate more interest and gate money. For 1897, the VFL scheduled a round robin tournament whereby the top four played each other once, the winners of these semi finals then met in a final to decide the premiership. The first such final was contested in 1898 between the Essendon Football Club and Fitzroy Football Club at the St Kilda Cricket Ground, which Fitzroy won scoring 5.8 to Essendons 3.5. The new finals system caused problems in 1901 when Geelong finished on top of the ladder but was eliminated when defeated in the semi final. A right of challenge was introduced, giving the team finished on top at the end of the regular season the right to challenge if they lost the semi final or the final. This challenge match came to be called the grand final, the first four grand finals were scattered around various Melbourne venues, one at Albert Park, two at St Kildas Junction Oval and one at the East Melbourne Cricket Ground. The selection of the venue could depend on the portion of the demanded by the grounds landlords. The public remained ambivalent to the concept of football until the VFL pulled off a coup in 1902. Previously, the MCG was unavailable to football in the spring months as it was being prepared for the coming cricket season. The original Argus system had been instituted by the VFL in 1901 and this figure was beaten in the 1912 Grand Final when 54,463 saw Essendon defeat South Melbourne. The big finals crowds prompted the MCC to cut down the eleven fifty-year-old elm trees inside the ground and turn the stadium into a bowl, complete with extra stands. The record fell again in the last grand final before World War I, the war had a considerable effect on the impact of the grand final and attendances plummeted. One critic called for the Carlton team to receive the Iron Cross after they defeated Collingwood in the thrilling 1915 Grand Final, ironically dubbed a glorious contest by famous coach Jack Worrall
21.
Sydney Swans
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The Sydney Swans are a professional Australian rules football club which plays in the Australian Football League. The club has been based in Sydney since the South Melbourne Football Club was relocated to Sydney in 1982, Sydney was the first club in the competition to be based outside Victoria. The Swans have played their games at the Sydney Cricket Ground since 1982. The South Melbourne Football Club was founded in 1874 and was strong through the 1880s and it won three premierships in 1909,1918 and 1933 before experiencing 72 years without a premiership, the longest premiership drought of any club. The club broke the drought in 2005 and won another premiership in 2012, the inauguration date of the club is officially 19 June 1874, and it adopted the name South Melbourne Football Club four weeks later, on 15 July. In 1880, South Melbourne amalgamated with the nearby Albert-park Football Club, following the amalgamation, the club retained the name South Melbourne, and adopted the clubs now familiar red and white colours from Albert-park. Nicknamed the Southerners, the team was more known as the Bloods. The colorful epithet the Bloodstained Angels was also in use, the club was based at Lake Oval, also home of the South Melbourne Cricket Club. The match took place on 3 October 1896 at the East Melbourne Cricket Ground, Collingwood won the match, six goals to five, in front of an estimated crowd of 12,000. This Grand Final would be the last match South Melbourne would play in the VFA, the other clubs were St Kilda Football Club, Essendon Football Club, Fitzroy Football Club, Melbourne Football Club, Geelong Football Club, Carlton Football Club and Collingwood Football Club. South Melbourne was one of the founding clubs of the Victorian Football League that was formed in 1897. The club had success and won three VFL premierships in 1909,1918 and 1933. Ironically, the driver was a South Melbourne supporter. It was during this period that the team known as the Swans. The name stuck, in due to the clubs association with nearby Albert Park and Lake. After several years only limited success, South Melbourne next reached the grand final in 1945. The match, played against Carlton, was to become known as the Bloodbath, courtesy of the brawl that overshadowed the match, Carlton won the match by 28 points, and from then on, South Melbourne struggled. In the following years, South Melbourne consistently struggled, as their traditional inner-city recruiting district largely emptied as a result of demographic shifts, the club missed the finals in 1946 and continued to fall such that by 1950 they were second-last on the ladder
22.
Junction Oval
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Junction Oval is an historic sports ground in the suburb of St Kilda in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Its location near the St Kilda Junction gave rise to its nickname and it is located approximately five kilometres from the centre of Melbourne and is in the southernmost part of the large Albert Park sporting precinct. In July 2015, the oval began undergoing a $25–$40 million redevelopment designed to make it the headquarters of Cricket Victoria. Junction Oval was established on its present site in 1856, the first grandstand at the ground was purchased from the old Elsternwick racecourse and erected in 1892 at the southern end of the ground. A new grandstand was built in 1925-6 at a cost of £7000, designed by the architect E J Clark and it was originally called the G P Newman Stand but has been renamed the Kevin Murray Stand after one of the Fitzroy Football Clubs most famous footballers. A second brick stand designed by E J Clark to complement the Murray Stand was built by H H Eilenberg in 1933-4 at a cost of £7500 and it was named the Don Blackie-Bert Ironmonger Stand in honour of the St Kilda Cricket Club and Test cricketers. It still functions as a public pavilion, a new £6000 manual scoreboard and kiosk at the northern end of the ground was built in 1956-7, the cricket clubs centenary year. It is unknown what the fate of these facilities is in the 2015–2017 redevelopment, the current capacity of the ground is around 8,000. The scoreboard is a landmark of the St Kilda Junction area, there are two main heritage grandstands, the Blackie-Ironmonger stand built by the St Kilda Cricket Club, and the Kevin Murray grandstand. The remainder of the ground is terraced asphalt, with grass embankments at the rear, older structures were demolished during a rationalisation of the ground, after they were declared a fire hazard by the Metropolitan Fire Brigade in 1988. It is a picturesque venue, with a top-quality turf playing area. Due to these connections, the club began discussions in 2010 to rename the ground the Shane Warne Oval, though such a change never occurred, Warne has previously spoken on behalf of the campaign to preserve the grounds suitability as a venue for first-class cricket. Although the ground was built for cricket, it is also known as the original home ground of the St Kilda Football Club. St Kilda first began playing matches at the oval in 1873, the Saints played home games at the venue until 1964. St Kilda played 564 VFL home matches for premiership points at the ground between 1897 and 1964. The Saints final home game at the venue was on the 22 August 1964 – a 12-point win against the Geelong –12.18 to 11.12 – in front of an attendance of 37,100. The club also played 16 away games at the venue –13 against the Fitzroy Lions, the first ever womens footy match was played there in 1921. Before the 1944 season, the military vacated the Junction Oval, because it was closer to South Melbourne’s still-occupied home base of the Lake Oval than Princes Park, the Swans started playing their home games at the venue
23.
North Melbourne Football Club
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It is based at the Arden Street Oval in the inner Melbourne suburb of North Melbourne, Victoria, but plays its home matches at the nearby Docklands Stadium. The clubs mascot is a kangaroo, and its use dates from the middle of the 20th century. The club is also known as The Shinboners, a term which dates back to its 19th-century abattoir-worker origins. The clubs motto is Victoria amat curam, Latin for Victory Demands Dedication, in two aspects North Melbourne stands second to none. One is the loyalty of its supporters, the other is the determination to carry on, despite its disadvantages. In the face of adversity, which might well have broken the spirit of most men, North Melbourne Football Club originated in the year 1869, when a football team was formed for local cricketers desiring to keep fit over the winter months. Information on the clubs first ever match is limited, but it is known that it took place in Royal Park, the ball used in the match was purchased by a local resident called Tom Jacks, who sold some roofing iron to pay for it. James Henry Gardiner is considered the founder of the club and he continued an active role with North Melbourne until his death in 1921. Regular premiership matches of Australian Football commenced in Victoria in 1870, Although North Melbourne was a part of this, it was classed as a junior club. The Australasian noted them as being one of the best of junior clubs. The club continued to develop, graduating to senior ranks in 1874 finishing 4th, along with the promotion, the club adopted its first uniform of blue and white horizontal stripes. In 1877, the club was re-established as a club under the new name of Hotham. Football took a giant step forward in 1877, with the formation of Victorias first colonial football league, Hotham were prime movers in establishing this league and were afforded a place in light of their previous contributions to Australian Football. The 1880s marked the emergence of the identity we now associate with North today. In 1882, the club amalgamated with the Hotham Cricket Club and moved into the North Melbourne Recreation Reserve, the joint venture was aimed at affecting improvements at the Hotham Cricket Ground, which was the name of the Reserve at the time. Four years later the club adopted the uniform of blue and white vertical stripes at the insistence of the VFA. The third significant development occurred in 1888 with the returning to its original name of the North Melbourne Football Club. This followed the name of the local area reverting from Hotham to North Melbourne, the 1880s saw the club develop a penchant for inter-colonial travel with trips to Tasmania and South Australia
24.
Optus
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Singtel Optus Pty Limited is the second largest telecommunications company in Australia. It is an owned subsidiary of SingTel since 2001. To provide services, Optus mostly owns and operates its own network infrastructure and it provides services both directly to end users and also acts as a wholesaler to other service providers such as Exetel and Amaysim. Through its Optus Yes brand, it provides broadband, and wireless internet services, other wholesale services include Satellite and 4G Mobile, in fact Optus is the largest satellite wholesaler in Australia. The company was known as Aussat Pty Limited prior to privatisation. It was later renamed to Cable & Wireless Optus Pty Limited before changing again to its present name, the dual frequencies covers 98. 5% of the population 4G/LTE provided by 700 /1800 /2100 /2300 /2600 MHz Covering over 90% of the Australian population. Satellite Telephony covering all of Australia, Internet Access NBN Residential Dial-Up Internet in all states Residential Broadband Internet in all states. A number of wholly owned subsidiaries operate in Australia as part of the Singtel Optus group. Optus also has a 50% stake in the now defunct OPEL Networks, other wholly owned subsidiaries of note no longer have a significant active role as individual entities. These are as follows, Reef Networks was formed in 1999 to provide an optical fibre link between Brisbane and Cairns in Queensland, Optus gained exclusive access to this link in 2001, ahead of acquiring the organisation in 2005. XYZed established a network of DSLAMs inside Telstra telephone exchanges, utilising Unconditioned Local Loop services to end users. Optus can trace its beginnings back to the formation of the Government-owned AUSSAT Pty Limited in 1981, in 1982, Aussat selected the Hughes 376 for their initial satellites, with the first, AUSSAT A1, launched in August 1985. AUSSAT satellites were used for military and civilian satellite communications, and delivering television services to remote outback communities. With Aussat operating at a loss and with moves to deregulate telecommunications in Australia, the new telecommunications company was designed to provide competition to then government owned telecommunications company Telecom Australia, now known as Telstra. Optus gained the second general carrier licence in January 1991, after privatisation, AUSSAT became Optus and its first offering to the general public was to offer long distance calls at cheaper rates than that of its competitor Telstra. The long distance calling rates on offer were initially available by consumers dialing 1 before the area code, following this, a ballot process was conducted by then regulator AUSTEL, with customers choosing their default long distance carrier. Customers who made no choice or refused to respond to the mailout campaign automatically remained as a Telstra long distance customer. Customers who remained with Telstra could dial the code of 1456 before the area code
25.
Balmain Tigers
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The Balmain Tigers are a rugby league football club based in the inner-western Sydney suburb of Balmain. They were a member of the New South Wales Rugby League and one of the most successful in the history of the premiership. In 1999 they formed a joint venture club with the neighbouring Western Suburbs Magpies club to form the Wests Tigers for competition in the National Rugby League and they no longer field any senior teams in the lower divisions. At the time of the joint venture only South Sydney Rabbitohs, the clubs home grounds are at present Leichhardt Oval, in Lilyfield, and T. G Milner Sportsground, in Marsfield. The distinctive black and gold colours of their 1908 thin striped jerseys lead their fans to nickname them THE TIGERS. Though it is claimed they were known as The Watersiders in the early days. It seemed to be used to not only to most Balmain sporting teams. The following boxing quote is an example, taken from Sydney Sportsman 11 Dec,1901. On Xmas Eve, Cam Brookes and Ike Stewart, heavyweights, meet at the Golden Gate, Brookes is another Balmain boy, as late as the 1930s some journalists were still using both Tigers and Watersiders in the same article. One of the earliest newspaper references to Balmain & Tigers appears in The Arrow 12 August 1911, the journalist Gulliver in his Football Notes column reports, W. G. B. Writes, Who said Balmain werent rough and he is very wild, but not so wild as the Balmain footballers. In 1908 Australias first season of rugby league began in Sydney, one of the clubs founders was future Premier of New South Wales, John Storey. Their home ground was Birchgrove Park, Wallabies game at Souths home ground. Souths were officially awarded the Premiership when they kicked off to an empty half of the field, Tigers dominance continued winning the 1919 and 1920 seasons comfortably. When they won the 1924 premiership this would be the last success for Balmain for over a decade to come and it would not be until 1939 the Tigers won back the Premiership smashing Souths 33-4. The weekend of the Final will also be remembered for the invasion of Poland by Germany which led to England, post-World War II marked a golden era for Balmain with the Tigers reaching five consecutive Grand Finals winning three of them. In the 1944 Grand Final the Tigers beat the strong favourites Newtown 19-16, Balmain reached the Grand Final again in 1945 but fell at the last hurdle against Easts 22-18. The loss was not long remembered as the Tigers went on to take out the two seasons, beating St George 14-12 in 1946, and Canterbury 13-9 in 1947
26.
Melbourne Football Club
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The Melbourne Football Club, nicknamed the Demons, is an Australian rules football club, playing in the Australian Football League. It is named after and based in the city of Melbourne, Victoria, Melbourne is the worlds oldest professional club of any football code. The clubs origins can be traced to an 1858 letter in which Tom Wills, captain of the Victoria cricket team, Melbourne has won 12 VFL/AFL premierships, the latest in 1964. The club celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2008 by naming 150 Heroes as well as creating a logo which appeared on its official guernsey. The football club has been a section of the Melbourne Cricket Club since 2009. In the winter and spring of 1858, an organised football team known as Melbourne played in a series of scratch matches in the parklands outside the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Other figures associated with this embryonic Melbourne side include cricketers Jerry Bryant, William Hammersley, Thompson, and teacher Thomas H. Smith. During meetings held on 17 and 21 May 1859, Wills, Hammersley, Thompson and Smith met near the MCG at the Parade Hotel, owned by Bryant, the resulting ten codified rules are the laws from which Australian rules football evolved. The first mention of a match played under the new code was between Melbourne and South Yarra in July 1859, with Hammersley as Melbournes inaugural captain. In 1861, Melbourne participated in the Caledonian Societys Challenge Cup, the club pushed for its rules to be the accepted rules, however many of the early suburban matches were played under compromised rules decided between the captains of the competing clubs. By 1866 several other clubs had adopted an updated version of Melbournes rules, drafted at a meeting chaired by Wills cousin. Harrison was a key figure in the years of the club, he often served as captain and, in later years. Due to his reputation and administrative efforts, he was officially named Father of Australian Football in 1908. During the 1870s, Melbourne fielded teams in the Seven Twenties, after a visit to England by one of the clubs officials, the colours of red and green were officially adopted by the club. Shortly following, the club wearing a predominately red strip. The name Redlegs was coined after a Melbourne official returned from a trip to England with one set of red, Melbourne wore the red set while the blue set were, allegedly, given to the Carlton Football Club. This may be the source of Carltons nickname, The Blueboys, in 1877, the club became a foundation member of the Victorian Football Association. During the same year the took part in the first interstate football match involving a South Australian side, Victorian
27.
Lakeside Stadium
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Lakeside Stadium is a sports arena in Albert Park, Melbourne, Australia. The venue was built on the site of the former Australian rules football and cricket ground, in its early days, the ground was considered one of the best in the league, and was the venue for the 1901 VFL Grand Final. South Melbourne used the ground for games until the end of the 1981 VFL season. The last senior VFL match played at Lake Oval was on Saturday,29 August 1981, the club continued to use Lake Oval for reserves matches for several years after 1981. Night premiership matches in the Victorian Football Association in 1957 and 1958 and night interstate matches, the ground record crowd for Lake Oval was set on 30 July 1932 when 41,000 turned out to see Carlton defeat South Melbourne by nine points. For a time during the late 1980s and early 1990s, the struggling Fitzroy Football Club used the ground as a training, the Old Xaverians Football Club of the Victorian Amateur Football Association was based there in 1993 and 1994. The oval was home to the South Melbourne Cricket Club during the summer, a remnant of the old Lake Oval structure, a grandstand built in 1926, still remains standing at the venue. It had not been used for years, and had fallen into disrepair. Its continued existence was the subject of debate, under the re-modeling of the venue in 2011, the stand was refurbished to house the VIS. The stadium was built with a capacity of 14,000 people, at one stage, a second two tiered stand for the outer side was proposed, but only preliminary plans were produced. The Victorian Institute of Sport, Athletics Victoria and South Melbourne FC would share tenancy of the venue, major Projects Victoria committed $60 million to the project. South Melbourne played its final match under Lakeside Stadiums previous configuration in April 2010, the synthetic 8-lane athletics track was constructed to international IAAF standards. A 6-lane 60 metre warm-up track was also constructed, the remodelling also saw a FIFA-sized natural grass soccer pitch, a new electronic scoreboard, upgraded lighting, a new northern stand and new spectator amenities. The old grandstand was renovated to accommodate offices. In March 2012, the hosted the Melbourne Track Classic. The venue is operated by the State Sports Centre Trust, the operators of the Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre, middle Park Lakeside Stadium homepage Lakeside Stadium at Austadiums Around the Grounds - Web Documentary - Lakeside Oval Template, W-League stadiums
28.
Brunswick Street Oval
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Fitzroy then moved to Princes Park sharing the ground with Carlton Football Club between 1967 and 1969 before playing its home games at the Junction Oval in St Kilda from 1970. The venues original tenants, the Fitzroy Cricket Club, left the venue in 1986 when they merged with the Doncaster Cricket Club, the venue hosted one first-class cricket match, between Victoria and Western Australia in 1925/26. The ground was unused for Australian rules football for 27 years, the main grandstand is listed on the Victorian Heritage Register. During the 1975 and 1976 Victorian State League seasons, the venue was used by the football club Heidelberg United. In the 1980s the venue was used intermittently by several lower-league soccer clubs up until 1990, the venue had previously hosted several showpiece soccer matches in the 1910s and 1920s, including Dockerty Cup finals. VFL games,612 between 1897 and 1966, including 609 which Fitzroy played in, VFL finals games,4 Highest attendance,34765 Austadiums
29.
Glenferrie Oval
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Glenferrie Oval is an Australian rules football stadium located in Hawthorn, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Hawthorn Football Club moved to a redeveloped Waverley Park early in 2006 in preparation for the 2006 AFL Season and their first home ground was the Hawthorn C. G. The Hawks merger with Boroondara in 1905 had them move to Boroondaras ground, Hawthorn dropped their colours of blue and red and adopted Boroondaras colours, which was a black guernsey with red sash but retained the name Hawthorn FC. The Hawthorn FC, competing in the Metropolitan Junior Football Association, between 1906 and 1973, the Hawks played their home games at Glenferrie Oval, which was located in the heart of the affluent suburb of Hawthorn. The clubs onfield results had not reached any great heights in those early days, Glenferrie Oval was pivotal in these advancements of the Hawthorn Football Club as it was considered the most suitable at the time. In 1914, when Hawthorn entered the VFA, the council was required to build a new dressing shed to meet the standards of the VFA competition. These dressing sheds were erected in the north-west corner of the ground, where the Tuck Stand now resides, in 1922 the ground was widened by 30 yards and lengthened westward by 50 yards - taking in the previous outer reserve ground - to the dimensions that remain today. The Kennon-Owen Stand was replaced by the Dr A S Ferguson Stand and it was later to be home of the Past Players Association and the original Museum. The northern part of the Ferguson stand was demolished to make way for the Victorian Weightlifting Building that remain today and it is now heritage protected as one of the most significant buildings of the era. In 1963 the large scoreboard was erected at the end of the ground. After the club won the 1961 premiership it was decided to buy some houses on the side of Linda Crescent to build the Social Club which opened in 1962. The ground was small by VFL standards, but the intimate nature of the ground made for a terrific atmosphere. The Hawks had played 584 matches at Glenferrie Oval during their time there, the last game that Hawthorn played at Glenferrie Oval was in August 1973 when Hawthorn won against South Melbourne by 37 points, in front of a crowd of 9842 people. The location of the ground has always been expansion prohibitive, wedged between the Belgrave/Lilydale railway line and nearby side streets, the small size and narrow wings of the ground led to it being known as the sardine can amongst fans. The ground is open to the public, and is used for a variety of recreation. In March 2010 the playing field was resurfaced with couch grass for public use, the Hawthorn Football Club continue to host Supporters Days at the ground after winning the AFL Premiership, with these days often drawing crowds of over 20,000 people
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Waverley Park
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Waverley Park was an Australian rules football stadium in Mulgrave, Victoria, Australia. For most of its history, its purpose was as a neutral venue, however, during the 1990s it became the home ground of both the Hawthorn and St Kilda football clubs. It was later replaced by Docklands Stadium and it is currently used as a training venue by Hawthorn. The main grandstand and oval are listed on the Victorian Heritage Register, the seating capacity is now 2,000, down from a peak of 72,000. Waverley Park was first conceived in 1959 when delegates from the 12 VFL clubs requested the league to find land that was suitable for the building of a new stadium, in September 1962, the VFL had secured a 212-acre block of grazing and market garden land in Mulgrave. This area was chosen because it was believed that with the effects of urban sprawl and the building of the South-Eastern freeway. The VFL reportedly lobbied the government to construct a train connection to the stadium. The original plans were for a stadium catering for up to 157,000 patrons, to accommodate the large number of patrons the members stand was to be extended around the whole ground. Hence, no development ever occurred and the capacity was set at just over 100,000 patrons. The playing surface of 200 metres long and 160 metres wide was the biggest in the league and this caused some controversy and the boundary lines were repainted and goals were relocated to make the playing area a similar size to the MCGs playing surface. Under the direction of architect Reginald E. Padey, work was started at the site on 5 January 1966 when the VFL President Sir Kenneth Luke turned the first sod. On construction of the stadium, a total of 378,000 cubic yards of topsoil was excavated, the soil was used to form the banks for some sections of the stadium. The foundations for the K. G. Luke stand were laid in 1969, finally, on 18 April 1970, Fitzroy and Geelong played the first game at Waverley Park, to a crowd of 25,887. However, the stadium was far from completed, in fact the only section of the actual grandstand that was built was the first level of the K. G. Luke Stand. The rest of the stadium had only completed on the ground level. The Public Reserve Stands encircling the rest of the stadium were finished at a cost of $4.5 million in 1974, lighting was added in May 1977, at a cost of $1.2 million, for the first of the 1977 night series televised matches. In 1982 a monochrome video matrix scoreboard was in operation at Waverley Park for the first time in VFL history, in 1984 the arena was re-turfed and the drainage system upgraded. Two years later a mosaic mural perpetuating many great names of VFL football was installed on the facade above the members entrance
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Western Oval
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Whitten Oval is a stadium in the inner-western suburbs of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, located at 417 Barkly Street, Footscray. Formerly known as the Western Oval, it was renamed in honour of Ted Whitten, a statue of Whitten was also erected at the entrance of the oval. The Whitten Oval is the centrepiece of a reserve that, from 1860, was a quarry used by the railways. In 1866, the quarry was turned into a reserve that included botanical gardens, in 1879, after moving from ground to ground, the local council granted the local football club permission to use the Western Reserve as their home ground. In 1883, the Footscray Football Club was formed, a year later, the club began hosting games in the botanical gardens. While the gardens known as the David Spurling Reserve, the oval within the gardens became the Western Oval. Footscray used Western Oval as its home ground almost continuously until 1997, in 1943, the club returned to Western Oval. In 1955, the record attendance was set for the oval when 42,354 turned out on 9 July to see then-defending premiers Footscray defeat Collingwood by six points in Round 12,1955. In 1983, struggling VFA Division 2 club Yarraville played its games at Western Oval on Sundays. This was the season of the arrangement, as the club folded before the 1984 season. In 1995, the oval was renamed the Whitten Oval, after the death of the football clubs favourite son, the driveway leading from Barkly Street to the car park behind the oval was named Whitten Avenue. After 1996, Western Oval ceased to be used as a regular AFL venue, a farewell premiership match was staged at the venue in Round 21,1997 before a crowd of 26,704, the Bulldogs 12.14 defeated West Coast 10.8. After moving home matches away from the venue, the Bulldogs retain a training, the ground also ceased to be a used as a regular cricket venue at the end of 1996. After the appointment of Campbell Rose as Chief Executive of the club in 2002. Construction commenced in 2005, and was completed in 2009, in 2014, the ground started hosting home matches for the Western Bulldogs reserves team, known as Footscray, which competes in the Victorian Football League. Fifteen Canary Island date palm trees line the north of the oval. Three Canary Island pine trees are behind these palms, to the west of the oval, between the car park and Hocking Street, there are two more palms. Of the 15 palms that line the northern border,10 are south of the entrance to Whitten Avenue
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Essendon Football Club
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The Essendon Football Club is a professional Australian rules football club which plays in the Australian Football League, the sports premier competition. Formed in 1871 as a club and playing as a senior club since 1878. It is historically associated with Essendon, a suburb in the north-west of Melbourne, dyson Heppell is the current team captain. A founding member club of both the Victorian Football Association, in 1877, and the Victorian Football League, in 1896, the club claims to have over at least one million supporters Australia wide. Essendon has won 16 VFL/AFL premierships which, along with Carlton, is the most of any club in the competition, the club was founded by members of the Royal Agricultural Society, the Melbourne Hunt Club and the Victorian Woolbrokers. The Essendon Football Club is thought to have formed in 1872 at a meeting it the home of a well-known brewery family, the McCrackens, whose Ascot Vale property hosted a team of local junior players. Robert McCracken, the owner of several city hotels, was the founder and first president of the Essendon club and his son, Alex, Alex would later become president of the newly formed VFL. Alexs cousin, Collier, who had played with Melbourne, was the teams first captain. The club played its first recorded match against the Carlton second twenty on 7 June 1873, Essendon played 13 matches in its first season, winning seven, with four draws and losing two. The club was one of the junior members of the Victorian Football Association in 1877. During its early years in the Association, Essendon played its matches at Flemington Hill. In 1878, Essendon played in the first match on what would be considered by modern standards to be a field at Flemington Hill. In 1879 Essendon played Melbourne in one of the earliest night matches recorded when the ball was painted white, in 1883 the team played four matches in Adelaide. In 1891 Essendon won their first VFA premiership, which they repeated in 1892,1893 and 1894, one of the clubs greatest players, Albert Thurgood played for the club during this period. Essendon was undefeated in the 1893 season, at the end of the 1896 season Essendon along with seven other clubs formed the Victorian Football League. Essendons first VFL game was in 1897 was against Geelong at Corio Oval in Geelong, Essendon won its first VFL premiership by winning the 1897 VFL finals series. Essendon again won the premiership in 1901, defeating Collingwood in the Grand Final, the club won successive premierships in 1911 and 1912 over Collingwood and South Melbourne respectively. The nickname first appeared in print in the local North Melbourne Advertiser in 1889 and it was known firstly as Essendon Town and, after 1905, as Essendon
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Richmond Football Club
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The Richmond Football Club, nicknamed the Tigers, is an Australian rules football club playing in the Australian Football League. The club has won ten premierships since joining the competition in 1908, the club is currently ranked sixth in the competition for premierships won. Prior to 1965 the club played games at Punt Road Oval. Based in a traditionally working-class area, Richmond has long-standing rivalries with cross-town Melbourne-based clubs, Collingwood, the club has been home to four AFL Hall of Fame Legends, Ian Stewart, Kevin Bartlett, Royce Hart and Jack Dyer. A team of playing as Richmond is mentioned by the newspapers in the first years of Australian football. Tom Wills, one of the founders, was the clubs inaugural secretary and captain. This loosely organised group has no continuity to the present club, a number of teams formed in the Richmond area during the games rapid expansion of the 1870s and early 1880s. However, all played at a level and it was considered an anomaly that Richmond, one of Melbournes biggest locales. The wait ended when the Richmond Football Club was officially formed at the Royal Hotel in Richmond on 20 February 1885, a successful application for immediate admission to the Victorian Football Association followed. The club shared the Punt Road Oval with the Richmond Cricket Club, at first the team wore a blue uniform. One of the most important features of a nineteenth-century footballers uniform was his headgear, and Richmond opted for yellow and black striped caps, after a couple of years, yellow and black stripes replaced blue as the colours of the teams guernseys. The team was called the Richmondites, the Wasps or, most commonly. During the late 1880s, the VFA expanded rapidly, a booming economy and large numbers of immigrants made Melbourne the largest city in the Australian colonies. The city was mad with football and many tried to get admission to the VFA. Richmond struggled to make an impression and after a promising season in 1888. As the local economy slipped into depression in the early 1890s and the crowds began to dwindle. Richmond were not considered part of elite group, who usually voted together as a block at VFA meetings. A lack of commitment and focused effort was holding the Tigers back, in 1896, Richmond walked off the field in a match with South Melbourne at half time when they were a long way behind on a very wet day to protest the umpiring. Later in the season, the Tigers had their score annulled against Essendon when it was discovered that they had too many men on the ground, in the closing three weeks of the season, Richmonds gate takings amounted to just five pounds
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Collingwood Football Club
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The Collingwood Football Club, nicknamed the Magpies or less formally the Pies, is an Australian rules football club which plays in the Australian Football League. This spike in membership registration can mainly be attributed to the winning of the 2010 AFL Premiership and this record was again broken in 2013, with club reaching a new high of 80,000 members. Collingwood is regarded as one of Australias most popular clubs, being the highest attended, Collingwoods home guernsey consists of black and white stripes, matching the colours of an Australian magpie. Throughout its history, the club has developed rivalries with cross-town Melbourne based clubs Carlton, Richmond, Essendon, historically one of the most successful clubs in the league, Collingwood has won 15 VFL/AFL premierships, the third-most of any team. Collingwood has played in a record 43 grand finals, winning 15, the club fields a seconds team in the Victorian Football League and a womens team in the AFL Womens competition. It also owns and operates a team in the National Netball League. The Collingwood Football Club was established on 12 February 1892, Collingwood played its first game in the Victorian Football Association against Carlton on 7 May 1892. The club won the VFA Premiership in 1896, in 1897, Collingwood, along with fellow VFA clubs Fitzroy, Melbourne, St Kilda, Carlton, Essendon, South Melbourne and Geelong split from the VFA and formed the Victorian Football League. Collingwood won its first premiership in 1902, defeating Essendon by 33 points, Collingwood was the most successful club of the 1920s and 1930s, appearing in 13 out of a possible 20 Grand Finals during the period. Collingwood were premiers six times during this time, including four consecutive premierships between 1927 and 1930, a VFL/AFL record, and two premierships in 1935 and 1936. The clubs coach during this period was Jock McHale, who served as coach from 1912 to 1949, Collingwood lost two Grand Finals to Melbourne in this decade, but bounced back to win premierships in 1953 and 1958. Collingwoods 1958 premiership is much cherished by the club as it prevented Melbourne from equalling Collingwoods record four premierships in a row, the 1958 premiership was however to be Collingwoods last for 32 years, as the club was to suffer a string of Grand Final defeats in coming decades. A string of eight Grand Final losses, often by narrow margins, between 1960 and 1981 gave rise to a perception that the club was prone to choking, a phenomenon wittily dubbed Colliwobbles. Whether this perception is accurate remains a subject of debate, however, Lou Richards ceremoniously buried the Colliwobbles at Victoria Park after the clubs 1990 premiership. Collingwood made a return to the finals in 2006, but were defeated by the Western Bulldogs by 41 points, having earned a preliminary final against Geelong, the Pies challenged the eventual premiers, only to fall short by five points. Nathan Buckley would announce his retirement at seasons end after playing just five games in 2007 due to injury, Collingwood finished eighth in 2008 and were assigned an away final against Adelaide at AAMI Stadium. After at one point trailing in the match, the Pies went on to end Adelaides season, having defeated the Saints in both their regular season meetings, the Pies lost convincingly, ending their 2008 season. The 2009 season saw Collingwood finish inside the top-four for the first time since 2003, but the season ended abruptly for the Magpies, with an 73-point loss to the Cats
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Preston City Oval
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The Preston City Oval is an Australian rules football stadium in Cramer Street in Preston, Victoria, a suburb of Melbourne. It has a grandstand and the ground is capable of holding around 5,000 spectators. It is also the home of the Northern Knights TAC Cup side and it was also the venue for the Victorian Womens Football League Grand Final in 2007, where a new VWFL crowd record was set. In summer the ground is used by the Preston Cricket Club, the PCC uses the ground for their 1st and 2nd XI as well as the Under 15 RM Hatch Team. In the summer of 2009/10 the ground was redeveloped, drought tolerant cooch grass has been in the summer so that the ground was ready for football season
