History

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//The Melbourne Cricket Ground is often referred to as the MCG or “The G”, and is one of Australia’s largest sports stadiums. It is also home to the AFL Grand Final. Costing over $434 million in building costs for the most recent stand and seating over 100,000 spectators, it has had a long and colourful history and has been used for many sporting events. The MCG is used mainly for Australian Rules Football and cricket, though it also held the 1956 summer Olympic Games and the 2006 Commonwealth games, and many other various sporting events such as the FIFA World Cup qualifying matches and the International Rules Football (Gaelic Footy) matches against Ireland.

The area where the existing ground is now was originally a 10 acre section of government paddock which was offered to the Melbourne Cricket Club in 1853 by Governor La Trobe for use as their home ground. Originally the land was intended for cricket and cricket only though eventually in 1933 this was changed to allow football to be played there. The first seating arrangement for the ground was a single wooden members grandstand, built in 1854, which seated the clubs’ members only, until a 6000 seat public grandstand was erected in 1861 so that other Melbournians could watch the cricket. More stands soon followed over the years, up to today where it is now the 100,000 seat Australian icon.

Thanks to the six huge, white, light towers around the outside of the stadium, which were installed in 1985, the MCG is able to be used for night matches as well as day matches. Before this, all VFL/AFL matches had to be held during the day. Believe me, there is nothing more spectacular than sitting under those blaring lights and watching the footy. The G also became home to the first full-colour video scoreboard in Australia in 1982.

The highest attendance record at the ground was set on the 15th of March, 1959 where 130,000 spectators managed to cram themselves in, to anywhere they could find, just so that they could watch the Billy Graham religious event. Other high attendance numbers came from various footy grand finals in the late 60’s-early 70’s.

The Melbourne Cricket Ground is listed on the Victorian Heritage Register and was included on the Australian National Heritage list on Boxing Day, December 2005. This ground is a very important Victorian icon and a part of the history of this country, so we hope that future generations will learn about and take care of this fantastic stadium.//

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