The East Melbourne Cricket Ground was a grass oval sports venue located at the corner of Wellington Parade and Jolimont Parade, in East Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.Santo Caruso, Marc Fiddian and Jim Main, ''Football Grounds of Melbourne'' (Melbourne: Pennon Publishing, 2002 . Now part of Yarra Park and being adjacent to the

Melbourne Cricket Ground The Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), also known locally as "The 'G", is an Australian sports stadium located in Yarra Park, Melbourne, Victoria. Founded and managed by the Melbourne Cricket Club, it is the largest stadium in the Southern Hem ...

, the site is best known for playing host to many sporting events during the city of

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/ Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a me ...

's early existence, consisting mainly of

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by st ...

and Australian rules football, although the ground occasionally hosted soccer matches.

History

The ground was opened in 1860 and closed in 1921. It adjoined the

and was not far from the Richmond Cricket Ground, all three grounds being sited in the area formerly known as Captain Lonsdale's Cow Paddock, now Yarra Park. Intercolonial Football Match 1879

Cricket

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

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officia ...

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

Australian rules football

The oval was used for Australian rules football games during the winter months from 1878. The ground also hosted the first-ever interstate representative football match, on 1 July 1879, between Victoria - represented by the Victorian Football Association (VFA) - and

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

. The match was attended by more than 10,000 people. It also hosted the first intercollegiate football match in Melbourne, played on 21 July 1881 between teams from the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb n ...

colleges

Trinity The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the central dogma concerning the nature of God in most Christian churches, which defines one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God the ...

and Ormond. Tenant football clubs of the ground included: * East Melbourne Football Club, which used the ground until it disbanded in mid-1882. *

Essendon Football Club The Essendon Football Club, nicknamed the Bombers, is a professional Australian rules football club. The club plays in the Australian Football League (AFL), the game's premier competition. The club was formed by the McCracken family in their ...

: despite the ground being away from the suburb of Essendon, the club moved to the ground in 1882 after East Melbourne folded, and used it in both the VFA and the VFL until its closure at the end of 1921. * North Melbourne Football Club used the ground during the

1897 VFA season The 1897 Victorian Football Association season was the 21st season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Port Melbourne Football Club, the first premiership in its history. The 1897 season the VFA's first ...

due to upgrading works on its usual home ground, the Arden Street Oval. The club also played an 1887 Queen's Birthday match at the ground, and another game there in 1891 as Arden Street was flooded. * West Melbourne Football Club moved to the ground for the

1907 VFA season The 1907 Victorian Football Association season was the 31st season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Williamstown Football Club, after it defeated West Melbourne in the final by eighteen points. It wa ...

, and disbanded the following year. *

Melbourne University Football Club Melbourne University Football Club, often known simply as University, is an Australian rules football club based at the University of Melbourne. The club fields two teams, known as the "Blacks" and "Blues", who both compete in the Victorian Ama ...

played there from

1908 Events January * January 1 – The British ''Nimrod'' Expedition led by Ernest Shackleton sets sail from New Zealand on the ''Nimrod'' for Antarctica. * January 3 – A total solar eclipse is visible in the Pacific Ocean, and is the 46 ...

1910 Events January * January 13 – The first public radio broadcast takes place; live performances of the operas '' Cavalleria rusticana'' and ''Pagliacci'' are sent out over the airwaves, from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York C ...

in the VFL; the club left the ground before the 1911 season following a dispute with Essendon over rent. * Melbourne City Football Club used it during its two years in the VFA, 1912 and 1913; Melbourne City lost all 36 matches it played in those two seasons. The ground hosted 426 senior matches in the recognized top level of Victorian football - 201 matches in the VFA and 225 matches in the VFL/AFL - in 44 seasons of competition. It also held 30 VFA finals between 1903 and 1921. The VFL held one final in the 1897 and 1901 finals series and the 1900 Grand Final at the ground, while the VFA also held the 1896 premiership play-off match at the ground. As a venue for football, the East Melbourne Cricket Ground had an unusual quirk that the field sloped downhill towards the railway end, but was often affected by a strong wind which blew to the pavilion end. The record football crowd at the venue was 36,185 for a VFA match between Essendon and South Melbourne in 1891, the record attendance for a match at that time. The VFL record was 20,181 for the 1900 Grand Final, with the record for a VFL home and away match being 18,000, set twice in 1921.

Soccer

Occasionally, soccer was played at the oval. The best known use for the sport were the interstate representative matches between the colonies of Victoria and

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

in the 1880s. Four matches were played between 1883 and 1887 with three taking place at the East Melbourne Cricket Ground with the other being played at the South Melbourne Cricket Ground that ended in a nil-all draw.

Lacrosse

The ground was occasionally used as a venue for

lacrosse Lacrosse is a team sport played with a lacrosse stick and a lacrosse ball. It is the oldest organized sport in North America, with its origins with the indigenous people of North America as early as the 12th century. The game was extensi ...

, and hosted Victoria's first intercolonial lacrosse match on 1 September 1888, against

(the first intercolonial match in Australia was played between

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , established_ ...

and

a year earlier). The match was not largely attended, due in part to the cold and showery weather on the day, with Victoria winning the match by 5 goals to 1.

Closure

After the 1921 football season, the ground was closed and then demolished to make way for an extension of the Jolimont Yard railway sidings. The East Melbourne Cricket Club subsequently amalgamated with the Hawthorn Cricket Club to form the

Hawthorn-East Melbourne Cricket Club The Kingston Hawthorn Cricket Club is an Australian cricket club based at Walter Galt Reserve, situated in Parkdale, Victoria. They play in Victorian Premier Cricket, the highest competition in the state. History The club was originally known ...

, and moved to Hawthorn's Glenferrie Oval. One of the wooden stands was moved from East Melbourne to Glenferrie Oval, where it stood until 1965, when it was replaced by the Dr A.S. Ferguson Stand. After the Essendon Football Club lost the use of the ground, it moved to the

Essendon Recreation Reserve Windy Hill (officially known as Essendon Recreation Reserve) is an Australian rules football and cricket ground located in Napier Street, Essendon, a northwestern suburb of the Melbourne metropolitan area. Windy Hill is most notable as the form ...

. It had initially tried to move to the

North Melbourne Recreation Reserve Arden Street Oval (also known as North Melbourne Cricket Ground) is a sports oval in North Melbourne, Victoria. It is currently the training base of the North Melbourne Football Club, an Australian rules football club, and up to the end of the ...

, resulting in a major off-field political struggle between the Essendon Association and Football Clubs, the VFL and the VFA. The former site of the ground has now been taken over by a housing estate, a feature of which is a semi-circular housing block with a tower obviously designed to look like an ersatz football pavilion. The oval is now a park.

References

{{University Football Club Sports venues in Melbourne Defunct Australian Football League grounds Defunct cricket grounds in Australia Defunct soccer venues in Australia Cricket grounds in Victoria (Australia) Sports venues completed in 1860 Melbourne Cricket Ground Sports venues demolished in 1922 1860 establishments in Australia 1922 disestablishments in Australia East Melbourne, Victoria