East Melbourne Cricket Ground

East Melbourne Cricket Club was the most successful member of the Victorian Cricket Association 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 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.

Occasionally, association football (soccer) was played at the oval. The most well known use for the sport were the interstate representative matches between the colonies of Victoria and New South Wales 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. [6]

The ground was occasionally used as a venue for lacrosse, and hosted Victoria's first intercolonial lacrosse match on 1 September 1888, against South Australia[10] (the first intercolonial match in Australia was played between Queensland and New South Wales a year earlier[11]). 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.[12]

Early Carlton champion George Coulthard running with the ball against Geelong during the 1880 VFA season on 17 July

The oval was used for Australian rules football games during the winter months. The ground hosted the first-ever interstate representative football match, on 1 July 1879, between Victoria (represented by the VFA) and South Australia. 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 colleges Trinity and Ormond.[13]

Tenant football clubs of the ground included:

• East Melbourne Football Club, which used the ground until it disbanded in mid-1882.
• Essendon Football Club. Despite the ground being 6 miles (10 km) 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 due to upgrading works on its usual home ground, the Arden Street Oval.[14] The club also played an 1887 Queen's Birthday match at the ground, and one game there in 1891 as Arden Street was flooded.
• West Melbourne Football Club moved to the ground for the 1907 VFA season, and disbanded the following year.[15]
• Melbourne University Football Club used it from 1908 to 1910 in the VFL; the club left the ground in 1911 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 venue held 30 VFA finals between 1903 and 1921,[16] while the VFL held a final in the 1897 finals series and the 1900 Grand Final at the ground. In addition, the VFA held the 1896 premiership playoff there.

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.[17]

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.

After the 1921 football season, the ground was closed and then demolished to make way for an extension of the Jolimont Yard railway sidings.[18]

The East Melbourne Cricket Club subsequently amalgamated with the Hawthorn Cricket Club to form the Hawthorn-East Melbourne Cricket Club, 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. It had initially tried to move to the North Melbourne Recreation Reserve, resulting in a major off-field political struggle between the Essendon Association and North Melbourne 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.