Skinner Reserve is an

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...

stadium A stadium ( : stadiums or stadia) is a place or venue for (mostly) outdoor sports, concerts, or other events and consists of a field or stage either partly or completely surrounded by a tiered structure designed to allow spectators to stand o ...

located on Churchill Avenue,

Braybrook, Victoria Braybrook is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, west of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Maribyrnong local government area. Braybrook recorded a population of 9,682 at the . Braybrook is bounded in th ...

. It is most notable as the former home ground of the Sunshine Football Club in the

Victorian Football Association The Victorian Football League (VFL) is an Australian rules football league in Australia serving as one of the second-tier regional semi-professional competitions which sit underneath the fully professional Australian Football League (AFL). It ...

(VFA). Prior to Skinner Reserve being developed as a football ground, the primary sports venue in the

City of Sunshine The City of Sunshine was a local government area about west of Melbourne, the state capital of Victoria, Australia. The city covered an area of , and existed from 1860 until 1994. History The local area was first incorporated as the Braybro ...

was Selwyn Park,

Albion Albion is an alternative name for Great Britain. The oldest attestation of the toponym comes from the Greek language. It is sometimes used poetically and generally to refer to the island, but is less common than 'Britain' today. The name for Scot ...

. In 1964, the Sunshine Council agreed to lease Selwyn Park to the

George Cross The George Cross (GC) is the highest award bestowed by the British government for non-operational gallantry or gallantry not in the presence of an enemy. In the British honours system, the George Cross, since its introduction in 1940, has been ...

soccer club, which was playing in Victoria's top level soccer league at the time; but, the Sunshine Football Club, as well as the local baseball and sub-district cricket clubs, still had three years to run on their lease. To secure agreement from the Sunshine Football Club to end the lease, the Sunshine Council committed to developing a new VFA-standard venue at Skinner Reserve. The venue was built during the 1965 season, with the football club signing a seven-year lease to begin from 1966. The venue had a very wide playing surface, high grassed embankments for spectators, and a grandstand – narrow, but quite tall by suburban standards – named the J. A. Chigwidden Stand after long-serving Sunshine Football Club committeeman Jack Chigwidden. During 1965, before the venue was finished, the

Victorian Football League The Victorian Football League (VFL) is an Australian rules football league in Australia serving as one of the second-tier regional semi-professional competitions which sit underneath the fully professional Australian Football League (AFL). It ...

Footscray Football Club The Western Bulldogs are a professional Australian rules football team that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's premier competition. Founded in 1877 as the Footscray Football Club, and based in West Footscray in the ...

made an application to the Sunshine Council to permanently move its playing and administrative base to the venue, and to develop it further to a VFL-standard venue; this came at a time when fellow VFL clubs and had just moved their bases to VFA venues (

Moorabbin Oval Moorabbin Oval (also known as RSEA Park under a naming rights agreement) is an Australian rules football ground in the city of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia at Linton Street in the suburb of Moorabbin, Victoria, Moorabbin. The ground was most ...

and

Coburg City Oval Coburg City Oval (also currently known as Piranha Park due to naming rights) is an Australian rules football and cricket stadium located in Coburg, Australia. It is home to the Coburg Football Club in the Victorian Football League, and the Cobur ...

respectively). The council ultimately honoured its existing agreement with the Sunshine Football Club, and rejected Footscray's application, and Sunshine began playing at the venue in 1966. Sunshine used the ground from 1966 until it folded in 1989. The venue also hosted several VFA seconds/reserves finals matches, including Grand Finals. Additionally, through much of its history it was not used for cricket, which made it an attractive venue for VFL clubs to play pre-season practice matches while the cricket season was still going. Floodlights were installed in 1987 to enable games to be played at night, although the only such VFA premiership match ever to be scheduled was cancelled due to the forfeiture of Sunshine's opponent, Caulfield, for unrelated reasons. A large crowd of 8,000 saw a fundraising match between former and players on the ground in October 1989, as part of efforts by Footscray supporters to save their club from merging with Fitzroy. The ground is today used primarily for local football, soccer and cricket. The Chigwidden Stand, having reached the end of its life and utility, was demolished in late 2015; its function as a pavilion, but not as a grandstand, was taken over by the Braybrook Community Hub, located in the wider Skinner Reserve area.

References

Australian rules football grounds Sports venues in Melbourne Sport in the City of Maribyrnong Buildings and structures in the City of Maribyrnong {{VictoriaAU-struct-stub