HIS3MHI – Making History Research Project – Victoria Park David De Angelis – 17990254 What is the historical legacy the Collingwood Football Club has at Victoria Park, Melbourne? The eerie sound of the 2:30pm train arriving at Victoria Park train station echoes and sends vibrations up through the grandstand as I sit on an old wooden seat inside an empty Sherrin stand. Whilst I sit on my wooden seat overlooking the skeleton that was once the R.T Rush stand, I am in amazement, shock and awe of how this current incarnation of Victoria Park is a far-cry from the bustling coliseum of black and white it used to be when I was a child. The eerie sound of that 2:30pm train arriving at Victoria Park station nearly twenty years ago, would have been drowned out with the sounds of rusty turnstiles rotating as droves of supporters make their way through the gates, the sound of magazine vendors’ yelling “RECORDS! GET YOUR FOOTY RECORDS!” as well as the hysteria that is associated with pre-game excitement. In this illustrated essay, I will address the historical legacy the Collingwood Football Club has shared over one hundred years at their undisputed home, Victoria Park. From the club’s humble beginnings of being a football club that represented the working-class people of Collingwood, its invincibility throughout the depression era, the various developments that occurred at the ground to the fateful day Collingwood played its last AFL match at in 1999. Within the four walls of the Collingwood Town Hall, the Collingwood Football Club was formed on Friday February the 12th, 18921. They were then sworn in to play their first then-VFA match some four months later Saturday the 5th of May against a nemesis that still to this day, is the biggest ever rivalry in Australian sporting history, the Carlton Football Club. The build up to this momentous occasion was predicated by the efforts Figure 1 The entrance to Victoria Park before a Collingwood vs South Melbourne match circa 1890-1920 (Courtesy of of the club’s first ever (http://www.collingwoodmagpies.net/victoria_park/victoria_park.html) President W.D. Beasley when he convinced the council “to spend 600 pounds on levelling the ground and erecting a picket fence around the playing arena of Victoria Park to impress the VFA.”2 Another important figure in the ground’s infancy was Melbourne architect William Pitt, who was the architect for the Princess Theatre, St. Kilda Town Hall and Melbourne Stock Exchange.3 Pitt was chosen for the job of Victoria Park’s first every grandstand. “The stand, erected in 1892 at the railway end of the ground in order not to annoy property holders, was not as grandiose as originally anticipated. Generous promises of support evaporated in the enervating economic atmosphere.”4 Nonetheless, the Collingwood Football Club played its first ever Australian Rules Football match at Victoria park, “the game being witnessed by over 10,000 people.”5 Despite losing the game scoring only 2 goals to Carlton’s 3 as well as a flurry of behinds for either team (Collingwood 11 and Carlton 13), the match was a success for the Collingwood Football Club as well as Victoria Park. “But the real winner was Collingwood, the suburb. An influx of football fans showed that new entity had already gained a strong foothold in support.”6 Now that the foundations have been laid out for the club and the ground, a new golden era would be established. 1 Michael Roberts, ‘Vic Park: Football comes to Victoria Park’, Collingwood Forever [website], (2014) <http://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/football-comes-to-victoria-park/> para. 5, accessed 23 Oct. 2016. 2 Ibid, para. 4. 3 Richard Stremski, Kill for Collingwood (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1986), 46. 4 Ibid, p. 46. 5 ‘Carlton v. Collingwood’, The Argus, 9 May. 1892, in National Library of Australia [online database], accessed 23 Oct. 2016. 6 Glenn McFarlane, ‘7 May: A date with the Blues’, Collingwood Forever [website], (2014) <http://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/7-may-a-date-with-the-blues/> para 18, accessed 23 Oct. 2016. Figure 2 Thomas Watt's Maryborough design in 1909 known as the Member's Stand. Courtesy of (http://www.victoriapark.net.au/2.html) At the turn of the nineteenth century, Collingwood became just the second team to have won back- to-back premierships in 1901-02. This achievement had come just ten years into the club’s existence and membership numbers skyrocketed throughout this time. It was the “blue-collar” appeal that made many of the hard-working Collingwood members flocked through the gates. In addition to this local support for Collingwood, there was also a large demographic of female members which led to further developments at the ground. “The club’s membership figures ostensibly support the contention that Collingwood was a working man’s club and analysis of the 1901 rolls reveals that almost 80 per cent of the identifiable members were working class.”7 The newly formed team had also enjoyed perpetual growth within its first ten years as membership figures were at 421 in 1892, reaching 2000 members by the time the club won its second flag in 1902.8 By 1899, one-third of Figure 3: The Original Grandstand and the Ladies Stand Collingwood’s membership were comprised of before the construction of new grandstands circa 1900. women, to accommodate for the fleeting Courtesy of (http://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/copeland- numbers of women attending matches at saves-collingwood) Victoria Park, it prompted the erection of the Ladies Pavilion in 1900. Although the idea of this pavilion was a basic structure costing 80 pounds and was segregating women supporters from the rest it did not detract the female supporters away from Victoria Park. The council was forced to later stabilise the pavilion two years later. In 1909, Thomas Watt who be entrusted for a third grandstand which was known as the Maryborough design. The completion of the stand came just in time for the club’s third premiership. “The 1892 stand was henceforth the public reserve; the old ladies pavilion became a smoker’s pavilion; and the new stand was solely for season ticket holders, male and female.”9 The club would then reach breaking point, in terms of its popularity and for the capacity of Victoria Park. 7 Richard Stremski, Kill for Collingwood, (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1986), 51 8 Ibid, 51 9 Ibid, 54 Not since the construction of the 1909 Maryborough design grandstand, had Victoria Park undergone any developments. The demand for further construction came in the late 1920s when Victoria Park was proving to be Eden, having won four consecutive VFL premierships. However, it was the way the Ryder Stand built, amid the Great Depression that truly exemplified the spirit of the Collingwood suburban community. The onset of the Great Depression of 1929 came at a very hard time for the industrial suburb of Collingwood which had endured the worst of the Depression. “It seems to Figure 4 The Ryder Stand located to the left of the Bob Rose stand today. have come early for the industrialised suburbs, hit them hardest and left them last.”10 In the midst of the Great Depression, the Australian Government had a “Government Unemployed Relief Fund” which was set aside to encourage construction works around Australia. The Collingwood City Council “decided to use £1,200 from the Relief Fund and borrow £8,000 at almost 6 per cent over 15 years to begin construction of a new stand”11 with the help of the local unemployed, the Ryder stand which is situated on the grounds northern wing. The construction of the stand was just Figure 5 An aerial shot of Victoria Park in 1929. The newly in time for the football club’s most successful constructed Ryder Stand is located on the left wing of the ever season. In 1929, Collingwood went on to oval. The Members stand is to its right and the old grandstand is toward the entrance. Courtesy of win every one of their eighteen season games, (http://www.victoriapark.net.au/2.html) their average winning margin was 43 points and the St. Kilda football club was the only team that managed to get within two goals of Collingwood all year. During these years of invincibility, Victoria Park would also play host to one of the most dominant goal- kickers of all time, Gordon “Nuts” Coventry. Figure 6 Under the Sherrin stand that link to the Ryder Stand and the R.T Rush Stand 10 Michael Roberts, ‘The Ryder Stand’, Collingwood Forever [website], (2014), <http://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/the-ryder-stand/> para. 4, accessed 23 Oct. 2016 11 Ibid, para. 6 Gordon “Nuts” Coventry is regarded as one of the greatest goal-kickers of all-time and held the record of 1,299 career goals for over 60 years (until Tony Lockett broke the record in 1999). Coventry kicked 679 goals at Victoria Park12 and many of his achievements were well publicised by many who witnessed his freakish abilities. On Saturday the 27th of July 1929, Coventry went on to kick 16 of Collingwood’s 22 team goals for the game in front of a crowd of 7,000 at Victoria Park.13 He became the first VFL player of that time to reach such Figure 7 Gordon Coventry, Collingwood's Greatest Goal-kicker. Courtesy of a feat before. “Collingwood again!! The Herald Sun Things don’t seem to happen anywhere else but Collingwood!!! This time ‘Nuts’ Coventry, Collingwood’s goal bird, has laid a ‘few’ at Hawthorn’s expense, what a harrowing sight it must have been for the poor Hawthornites to watch that out – 16 of the best!!!”14 This would achievement would be eclipsed a year later by Coventry when on Saturday the 19th of July 1930, 14,000 people at Victoria Park witnessed Coventry kick a record breaking 17 goals against Fitzroy.15 But it was the hilarious wager that was placed on the achievement that many others did not see coming.