beware the parochial South Australian...
Sun, Dec. 13th, 2009 11:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annarti
Okay, so I've held off since the last Test to properly develop my thoughts, but nope, not changing. Still makes me grit my teeth, narrow my eyes and start a fire in my stomach.
This was my Oval:
The 'new' Bradman Stand, built in the mid 90s. Named after the greatest batsman the game has seen, who coincidentally was a proud South Australian until he died. Notice how similar that stand looks to these ones:
The members stands. Absolutely iconic. That scene there, apart from the colours of the uniforms (and the advertising boards, I assume), is exactly as it was around 90 years ago. That's the scene Sir Donald Bradman walked out from when he was playing.
And again, classic view since the heritage listed scoreboard was built 98 years ago. HOW GORGEOUS IS MY OVAL YOU GUYS. That's just... That's the money shot right there. Old scoreboard, St Peter's Cathedral peeking over the tops of the Moreton Bay fig trees, people sitting on the Hill with picnic blankets and mini games of cricket... Love my Oval~
New developments in 2003. This used to be just the Hill, now the Chappell Stands, which I do like. They're casual, unimposing, modern but still in keeping with the tradition of the Adelaide Oval.
Tradition is a big thing in cricket, you must understand, and possibly even more so at Adelaide Oval than the rest of the country. Commentators, players, officials, ALL of them comment on how gorgeous the Adelaide Oval is. Everyone ranks it as the most picturesque cricket ground in the world, with only Newlands in South Africa, which I'll admit has a pretty stunning aspect with Table Mountain behind it, being mentioned in the same breath. I promise you it's not only home bias saying this, Adelaide Oval is beautiful. Les Burdett, the curator, is well-known enough in this city that he's been on a beer ad. We are so bloody proud of our oval. People rarely ever have nice things to say about Adelaide (because, let's face it, we have bugger-all and the eastern states hate us), but the Oval? That's one thing we have got. Where the rest of the country has faceless, generic stands around boring stadium grounds, Adelaide Oval has beauty and character.
However, this is my Oval now:
The construction site that was once the members stands. The Hill and its scoreboard are now the only iconic parts of the ground left.
Construction well underway for building the new stands. The members were originally told these would look like the old ones only bigger and modernised, so without posts at the front holding the roof up and blocking the view, give them better seats than the crappy old wooden benches they had. I know this cos my uncle's a member and he was telling me about it, sounding quite excited. This was about two years ago. The stands got demolished (apart from the façade, which you can still see standing there in classic Adelaide Oval red brick) early this year, after the last cricket season had finished. Basically, I was expecting something like the Bradman stands on the left there.
And this WILL be my Oval:
Do please mute it. Mike Rann is a dickhead who doesn't know jack shit about my Oval or the sport it represents. That is MY OVAL. It's picturesque, it's iconic, it's loved by cricket fans and players the WORLD OVER. People come to watch cricket here because it's beautiful and unique, and Mike Fucking Rann wants to--and WILL--turn it into just another stadium. In keeping with the theme of the ground my ARSE. The theme of the ground is TRADITION and classic beauty. As I said in my original post regarding this fugly development, we are not Melbourne and we're bloody proud not to be.
Melbourne has the MCG because the city can support it. Their atmosphere is for the massively huge and noisy crowd all yelling and cheering at once in this huge Colosseum-like cauldron. For AFL matches between two Victorian teams, they regularly fill it to capacity of near enough 100,000. Ditto for the first day or three of the Boxing Day Test, depending on the opposition, and for the one dayers they get. Adelaide, okay yeah, the Crows games could fill the proposed 50,000 stadium, but that's one game every two weeks. The Power certainly can't fill it--they can't fill AAMI, and that's right in the heart of Port territory. We don't NEED a 50,000 capacity stadium. AAMI is perfectly fine for AFL. The Crows have a sellout every week unless it's shithouse weather, and no redeveloped Adelaide Oval is going to fix that. And come on, 50,000 isn't exactly an impressive number anyway. As I just said, the G can seat double that.
This new development is shit. It's going to destroy everything I love about my Oval. The only reason commentators and players are going to talk about it now is to lament it. I could handle it if it was just the members stands that were changing. Just. But none of it is going to be left. The Bradman Stand's going, and it's only about 15 years old. Members stands already gone. All but the tiniest corner of the Hill, where the scoreboard is, will remain. You won't be able to see the Moreton Bay figs behind it, or the cathedral, or little kiddies playing cricket on the Family Hill section with mum and dad on a picnic blanket. I'm so glad I've taken my camera to pretty much every match for the last four years or so, because all that is as good as gone.
... Winamp as scarily fitting as ever.
This was my Oval:
The 'new' Bradman Stand, built in the mid 90s. Named after the greatest batsman the game has seen, who coincidentally was a proud South Australian until he died. Notice how similar that stand looks to these ones:
The members stands. Absolutely iconic. That scene there, apart from the colours of the uniforms (and the advertising boards, I assume), is exactly as it was around 90 years ago. That's the scene Sir Donald Bradman walked out from when he was playing.
And again, classic view since the heritage listed scoreboard was built 98 years ago. HOW GORGEOUS IS MY OVAL YOU GUYS. That's just... That's the money shot right there. Old scoreboard, St Peter's Cathedral peeking over the tops of the Moreton Bay fig trees, people sitting on the Hill with picnic blankets and mini games of cricket... Love my Oval~
New developments in 2003. This used to be just the Hill, now the Chappell Stands, which I do like. They're casual, unimposing, modern but still in keeping with the tradition of the Adelaide Oval.
Tradition is a big thing in cricket, you must understand, and possibly even more so at Adelaide Oval than the rest of the country. Commentators, players, officials, ALL of them comment on how gorgeous the Adelaide Oval is. Everyone ranks it as the most picturesque cricket ground in the world, with only Newlands in South Africa, which I'll admit has a pretty stunning aspect with Table Mountain behind it, being mentioned in the same breath. I promise you it's not only home bias saying this, Adelaide Oval is beautiful. Les Burdett, the curator, is well-known enough in this city that he's been on a beer ad. We are so bloody proud of our oval. People rarely ever have nice things to say about Adelaide (because, let's face it, we have bugger-all and the eastern states hate us), but the Oval? That's one thing we have got. Where the rest of the country has faceless, generic stands around boring stadium grounds, Adelaide Oval has beauty and character.
However, this is my Oval now:
The construction site that was once the members stands. The Hill and its scoreboard are now the only iconic parts of the ground left.
Construction well underway for building the new stands. The members were originally told these would look like the old ones only bigger and modernised, so without posts at the front holding the roof up and blocking the view, give them better seats than the crappy old wooden benches they had. I know this cos my uncle's a member and he was telling me about it, sounding quite excited. This was about two years ago. The stands got demolished (apart from the façade, which you can still see standing there in classic Adelaide Oval red brick) early this year, after the last cricket season had finished. Basically, I was expecting something like the Bradman stands on the left there.
And this WILL be my Oval:
Do please mute it. Mike Rann is a dickhead who doesn't know jack shit about my Oval or the sport it represents. That is MY OVAL. It's picturesque, it's iconic, it's loved by cricket fans and players the WORLD OVER. People come to watch cricket here because it's beautiful and unique, and Mike Fucking Rann wants to--and WILL--turn it into just another stadium. In keeping with the theme of the ground my ARSE. The theme of the ground is TRADITION and classic beauty. As I said in my original post regarding this fugly development, we are not Melbourne and we're bloody proud not to be.
Melbourne has the MCG because the city can support it. Their atmosphere is for the massively huge and noisy crowd all yelling and cheering at once in this huge Colosseum-like cauldron. For AFL matches between two Victorian teams, they regularly fill it to capacity of near enough 100,000. Ditto for the first day or three of the Boxing Day Test, depending on the opposition, and for the one dayers they get. Adelaide, okay yeah, the Crows games could fill the proposed 50,000 stadium, but that's one game every two weeks. The Power certainly can't fill it--they can't fill AAMI, and that's right in the heart of Port territory. We don't NEED a 50,000 capacity stadium. AAMI is perfectly fine for AFL. The Crows have a sellout every week unless it's shithouse weather, and no redeveloped Adelaide Oval is going to fix that. And come on, 50,000 isn't exactly an impressive number anyway. As I just said, the G can seat double that.
This new development is shit. It's going to destroy everything I love about my Oval. The only reason commentators and players are going to talk about it now is to lament it. I could handle it if it was just the members stands that were changing. Just. But none of it is going to be left. The Bradman Stand's going, and it's only about 15 years old. Members stands already gone. All but the tiniest corner of the Hill, where the scoreboard is, will remain. You won't be able to see the Moreton Bay figs behind it, or the cathedral, or little kiddies playing cricket on the Family Hill section with mum and dad on a picnic blanket. I'm so glad I've taken my camera to pretty much every match for the last four years or so, because all that is as good as gone.
... Winamp as scarily fitting as ever.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: Mon, Dec. 14th, 2009 12:28 am (UTC)I tend to be a traditionalist when it comes to some aspects of sports, and I feel that way when it comes to the venues themselves. I remember hearing about this, and now I understand fully why it's such a big deal.
I've never been to the oval, but from everything you've said and shown, it looks like a unique place that resounds "cricket". I guess it sounds like what they want to do is completely rebuild this into a the new centralized stadium, along the lines of what they've done with the Docklands.
Is there any reason, aside from the fact that it's not in downtown Adelaide, why they're not simply doing this to AAMI and setting that up?
no subject
Date: Mon, Dec. 14th, 2009 02:59 am (UTC)I want to know what the hell is wrong with AAMI. It's way out north, sure, but in a city as spread out as Adelaide, wherever they put something is going to be ages from somewhere. Where it is now is right in the heart of Port territory, and yet it's the Crows who time and again sell the stadium out. The only time Port does is if they're playing the Crows. The location of the ground isn't the issue there at all.
And what do they plan on using AAMI for after AFL has moved to Adelaide Oval? SANFL? Yeah, sticking it way out there is really going to help the attendance of state-level sport, I can tell. It's not even a certainty that AFL is going to end up at Adelaide Oval anyway. Rann keeps talking about it like it is, but the reality is that AAMI was originally built because the governing bodies of Adelaide Oval and the AFL couldn't come to an agreement, so they AFL said bugger you and built their own ground. He's redeveloping it for something that has every likelihood of not even happening.
My tax dollars are paying for a guy I didn't vote in to destroy my favourite place in the city. I hate it.
no subject
Date: Mon, Dec. 14th, 2009 09:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Mon, Dec. 14th, 2009 10:45 am (UTC)