Melbourne's New Stadium

Curious where Melbourne's new 20,000 capacity rectangular stadium (depicted above) is actually going to reside? This Google satellite image centered on ex-greyhound track Edwin Flack Park displays the proposed building site of the new football and rugby venue.

You might want to keep the overhead view handy in order to decipher the hullabaloo brewing over the future usage of facilities at Olympic Park (adjacent to Edwin Flack Park on the left of the satellite image) and Gosch's Paddock (the two ovals on the far right) once the new stadium has been occupied.

Once Melbourne Victory and Melbourne Storm move into the new stadium, Athletics Victoria and two AFL football teams (Collingwood and the Melbourne Demons) are set to tussle over the territory that remains. Currently, Athletics Victoria is based within the Olympic Park stadium, Collingwood trains at Edwin Flack, and the Demon's try not to get caught up in the heavy traffic of Punt Road (extreme right of the satellite image) when they train on the open access turf of Gosch's Paddock.

Inevitably, since this is Melbourne, Eddie McGuire is right in the thick of things. The chairman of Collingwood and concurrent board member of Athletics Australia clearly isn't fazed by such big business irrelevancies as conflict of interest. From McGuire's point of view the solution to the issue is relatively simple: in return for cordially stepping aside from the rundown dogheap that is Edwin Flack, Collingwood ought to be granted full and independent use of Olympic Park's facilities. Sharing should not be an option for Australia's Greatest Sporting Institution.

As a result, Athletics Victoria and thousands of high school track & field carnival participants may need to find a new home (e.g. Albert Park), while the Demons might have to put up with the fringe of the parklands, i.e. where grass meets asphalt, for good. In the meantime, while the new stadium is being built, Collingwood is set to share Gosch's Paddock with the Demons, thus acquiring a small taste of what they're asking of their rivals. It remains to be seen if the tough stance of the Magpies will be altered by future traffic dodging incidents....

Back to matters at hand. I like the design of the new stadium, but I do have to wonder where the regular Victory and Storm fans are going to park. The semi-official data for the venture suggests that there are going to 320-350 car parking spaces "on site", probably just enough to cover board members and VIPs with one spot leftover for Victory's continually absent number one ticket holder, Premier Steve Bracks. Perhaps the "Open Air car park" will accomodate more spaces, but if so Victory, the government, nor the project's developers are indicating how many. "Catch a train," seems to be the emphasis. I don't drive, but on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of people who don't live next to a train station in Melbourne nor those who feel like utilising the grottiest suburban bus service in Australia, the response is obvious: After you, Mr Bracks.

For a more extensive view of the new stadium in relation to the surrounding landscape, check out this nifty video flyover (997 KB).