The Grand Stands

The Collingwood Football Club has enjoyed overwhelming support from it's very first game on May 7th 1892 when an estimated 16,000 patrons watched Collingwood play Carlton at Victoria Park.  At that point in time there were no structures for viewing the game but a £600 grand stand was under construction and would be ready by mid June.  Grassed embankments were raised up to help spectators get a good view of the action and one inparticular would remain and is still a feature of the ground.  At the Yarra Falls or Trenerry Crescent end of the ground is One-Eyed Hill.  For 107 years Collingwood fans stood on that embankment and cheered on their beloved players and tormented the opposition.  It was a tough area to view footy from, while the ground become and more and more built up with facilities, One-Eyed Hill maintained its link to the very earliest dyas of the Collingwood Football Club.

The Lady's Stand was next to be built, shortly followed by a new Members' Stand that required the old original wooden stand to be moved further South.  The Ladies Stand was removed to make way for the new Jack Ryder Stand that was opened in September of 1929 when The Machine Team was at the absolute height of their powers.  They had just completed the home and away season undefeated and were steam rolling towards a third consecutive premiership, which would become an unequaled four in row in 1930.  No other team has gone through an entire season undefeated.

Almost thirty years would pass before any further major development would take place at Victoria Park.  A lack of council cooperation and a Club that was heavily restricted in what it could do at the ground resulted in the existing structures deteriorating to a very unsafe state.  The acquisition of a long term leashold on the ground gave the Collingwood Football Club the long awaited opportunity to finally bring the ground's facilities up to date.  The Members' Stand was refurbished and repainted over and over again and not replaced until 1969 when the first third of the Sherrin Stand was constructed.  Collingwood was in full swing once the 40 year was in place.  Over £200,000 pounds were spent of a new Social Club Building were the old tennis courts once stood.  Opened in 1969 by Sir Dallas Brooks and named the the Syd Coventry Pavilion it was a massive acheivement for the club and reflected a booming membership following a stunning, against all odds, premiership victory in 1958. 

Just seven years later and a new sweeping covered Grand Stand gave patrons in 'the outer' on the Turner Street (South) side of the ground the best viewing facilities of they time at any suburban sports ground.  Only major arenas such as the MCG and SCG boasted such facilities.  Three years later and the aforementioned Sherrin stand replaced the sixty year old Members' Stand.  Victoria Park was now by far the best place to view a footy match outside the MCG.  The last third of the Sherrin Stand was completed in 1978 and grand stands now ringed more than 3/4 of the ground with One-Eyed Hill the only grassed embankment left.

In 1989 the thirty year old Social Club builbing received a major face lift with floors added and the interior completely redesigned.  A new glazed canterlevered viewing area was constructed into the second floor over hanging the standing room in front of the stand and named after one the Club's greatest champions, Bob Rose.

During the 80's John Hickey had ambitious plans to construct a new stand on One-Eyed Hill and duplex the Ryder and part of the Rush stand.  The council and residents opposed the plans and when John was thrown out by the 'New Magpies' in 1982 the plans were forgotten.  Alan McAlister tried to revive the idea of redeveloping the ground and creating a 'Magpie World', but things had gone past the point of no return.  The VFL's failed attempt to create a suburban football Mecca out at Waverley had doomed all suburban home grounds to an early death.  The gorund rationalisation policy of the league was resisted by Collingwood for as long as they could hold out, but by 1996 just three games were being played at Victoria Park and they were against lowly interstate sides like Fremantle, the Camry Crows and the Brisbane Bears.

In 1999, with the club on the verge of falling to only its second ever wooden spoon, the Magpies played their last game at Victoria Park.  August 28th, 1999 and the recently merge Fitzroy Lions and Brisbane Bears came to Abbotsford and humbled a dissinterested and woeful Collingwood outfit.  It was as though the club had given up completely.  It was too hard a task for those succeeding McHale, Coventry, Collier, Pannam, Proudfoot, Lee, Whelan, Rose, Mann, Tuck and Weideman.  The legacy was truely a burden for a team that sort external excuses for poor performances.  The need for facilities had become both Victoria Park's and the Collingwood Football Club's downfall.  Since 1958 and 48 seasons of football, the once mighty Magpies have only managed one premiership.  The Club that once had potential players queueing up at the gates to get a game was now having to mortgage it's own soul to secure 'franchise' players that inevitably underperformed.

Collingwood legend Len Thompson sitting in the members

The Club drifted on at Victoria Park while Eddie McGuire made plans for the big break away.  The place was 'rat infested' and the club deserved better.  The council was impossible to deal with and the ground could never be truly Collingwood's while a covenant existed requiring the ground to open and free for use by all Collingwood people.  Upon leaving the football had a quick fire sale to raise some funds.  The council whinged about that too and demanded their share of the funds raised.  Never omce considering that the vast majority of the stadium was funded by the members of the football club and if it were not for the Collingwood Football Club the stadium would not exist.