Former Melbourne boy BARRY STONE revisits the hallowed turf of the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
FOUR years ago I visited my home town of Melbourne after 25 years in Sydney. I was staying in the CBD, it was 11.30 pm, but I just couldn’t sleep with my favourite city all about me. So I went for a stroll.
Thirty minutes later I was standing beneath the still-burning light pylons of the MCG, the epicentre of world sport, the paddock, where Richmond won the 1980 grand final. Kevin Bartlett. Jim Jess. Francis Bourke. The good old days.
It was five minutes to midnight and I was alone.
Its exterior had changed – now modern, concrete, metallic and angular.
Then came the inevitable flashbacks: of the wind and the rain. And the losses.
The last time I saw a match here was 1988, the Round 7 game against North Melbourne. The score was tight ‘til the last quarter, when North kicked nine or 10 goals to our one. It was horrible.
Now, 25 years later, I was back. Only there were no spectators, no pedestrians, and no staff either, it seemed.
The ground seemed bigger; the enlarged facilities, I suppose. But I thought it odd the towers were still illuminated. And then I saw it – a shaft of light from an open door... at the MCG ... at midnight.
I summoned a nip of courage, took a breath, and walked through it into the concourse. No one was there to see me. So I walked to the fence and looked out over the floodlit field.
It was beyond ethereal. The stands were empty, and only then did I realise this place exudes as much energy empty as when it’s full.
I was overwhelmed by its silence. It was a Field of Dreams moment, and I wondered: if I squinted, if I looked really, really hard, who might I see out there? Cuthbert? Landy? Bradman?
When I was born in 1960, Dad wrote to the Melbourne Cricket Club telling them he’d been blessed with a son, and had them put me on their wait list for membership.
Twenty-one years later, with sufficient numbers of its ageing members having graciously passed away to make room for me, they wrote back. Would I care to join?
Oh – yes, please.
I now have sons of my own. Jackson is 16 and follows Collingwood, Truman is 12 and loves his Western Bulldogs. They’d never been to the MCG, and that needed to change.
So we flew to Melbourne for this year’s season opener, Richmond v Carlton and, would you have it, Collingwood v Western Bulldogs the very next night. Both at the “G”. A schedule tailored just for us.
To me, the MCG is Melbourne in miniature, unlike Sydney, with its tease of a harbour separating the haves and have-nots with its stratospheric real estate.
Here you can still live almost anywhere if you’re really determined to do so. AFL football, too, is a leaven.
It’s football code isn’t divided like it is in Sydney, with its rugby union of the university elite and rugby league of the working class.
The Old Paddock is an egalitarian place. Maybe not the Utopia of author Thomas More, but as close as a sporting stadium is ever likely to get.
So check your status at the gate. Because inside here, we’re all the same.
* The writer was a guest of Visit Victoria and Adina Apartments
If you go...
JETSTAR flies daily to Melbourne from all Australian capital cities – www.jetstar.com
In Melbourne stay at Adina Apartments – www.tfehotels.com
For tours of the MCG – www.mcg.org.au