Melbourne_Cricket_Grounds

 English Australian Icons Oral Presentation. Melbourne Cricket Grounds. ; positive. For this 'Australian Icons' oral, the topic chosen to work with was the 'Melbourne Cricket Grounds' located in Yarra Park, in Melbourne, Victoria. Its been around since 1853-1854. Thats over 150 years! It's known for being the largest stadium in Australia, it can hold up to 105,018 at capacity, and it holds the world record for the highest light towers at any sporting venue. The MCG itself stands 20,000 square meters in size, measuring 171 x 146 metres in length, from fence to fence. Back in 1853, the Melbourne Cricket Club had been kicked out of its old home ground by the government, who'd wanted to use the land to build tracks for Australia's first steam train, and therefore forced to find a new home. The club had then bought and bulit on the location of which the MCG now stands. Since its creation, many iconic events have been held there. These are just a few to name. Way back in 1897, they began holding VFL matches, which stands for Victorian Football League, and then later on AFL matches. The annual AFL Grand Final matches, have been played at the MCG every year since 1902. AFL matches broke a few records aswell. In the 1970 VFL Grand Final between Collingwood and Carlton, 121,690 people attended. Just recently, the 2008 Grand Final match between Hawthorn and Geelong created a new attendance record. 100,012 people witnessed the historic match take place. It's quite clear that the AFL has a strong bond with the MCG and creating a family name out of it! However, being the 'Melbourne Cricket Grounds,' you can tell the original purpose of the sporting arena was firstly for Cricket. Since being built in 1854, Australian Cricket matches have been held there. Roughly 100 test matches have been played on the grounds, most of those being the traditional Boxing Day test matches, watched by millions of Australians every year. The Third Test match, held over six days in 1937 to 1938, created an attendance record of 350,534 people! They also set the daily attendance record for a cricket match in 1961 when Australia faced off against the West Indies, gathering 90,800 eager cricket fans to the stadium. Numbers of this size, show that not only do people enjoy the cricket, but that they all enjoy the venue itself. You wouldn't want to attend a game or match at an uncomfortable venue. It'd be incredibly hard to enjoy the game! The Melbourne Cricket Grounds, aren't just used for sporting events you know! Just last year 80,518 people rocked up for Sound Relief, raising thousands of dollars for the Victorian bushfire and Queensland flood victims. Well known bands such as Wolfmother, Kings of Leon and Jet preformed, along with the 'one night only' reunion of Australian rock band Midnight Oil. Now they could have chosen any other arena in Victoria; Rod Laver, Telstra Dome, Albert Park, but no, they decided to hold it at the Melbourne Cricket Grounds. The organisers already knew that this was a well known, well respected arena, and had already witnessed so many Australian memories and iconic events. It was a no-brainer that Sound Relief should've been held there. Another reason that the Melbourne Cricket Grounds is known as an Australian icon, was its holding of the 1956 Olympic Games. The Olympic Games have only been held in Australia twice, the second time being in Sydney for the 2000 Olympic Games. The Olympics helped boost the national economy at the time, with people from all over the world coming to Melbourne to witness their country go for gold. Over the fifteen days of the Olympics, an estimated 1,153,000 people went through the MCG to watch the Games unfold. People from all over the world, knew where the MCG was now. The Melbourne Cricket Ground was also home of the 2006 Commonwealth Games. These Games were slightly shorter, lasting eleven days. Within these eleven days however, 763,515 spectators passed through the gates of the MCG. This gigantic crowd, again helped with the economy, generating alot of business for hotels in the area. Many were booked months in advance. The opening ceremony, 10 track and field sessions and the closing ceremony were held at the Cricket Grounds. Australia had infact won the Commonwealth Games this year also, beating main compeditors England and Canada for the top spot. The MCG would forever be etched into Australian sporting history, being the grounds where we won first at the Commonwealth Games. As a random little fact, on the 30th of January, 2009, the Melbourne Cricket Grounds was voted one of the seven wonders of the sporting world! Guess that shows how much of a positive aspect it is to Australia and its place in sporting history.