Austadiums Forum

Brisbane-Milton





Adelaide-Memorial Drive





Sydney-White City






Melbourne-Kooyong





Perth-Kings Park

Thats brilliant!

Aerial view today...

http://members.iinet.net.au/~rkptc/pdf/ ... _Years.pdf

This has lots of old photos of Royal Kings Park. It sounds like the next book I will read...

We need to set up a Stadium Book trading scheme...

I have a lot of old Davis Cup programmes and there are big full page ads in them plugging the steel companies that erected those temporary seating. That's a lot of scaffolding!

For RKP to host these days you'd have to use the middle grass court with temp stands on three ends (Nth, West, East). Max 4000 capacity but good enough for the next time we're in the Asian group! Then again, it'd be a goer for Fed Cup.

Ive been reading the book on Royal Kings Park and was going to share a few interesting insights into the construction of the first stand in 1925

Was a male only institution from 1904 - 1925 because men wanted to make sure they had priority court time. Even during the War, this did not change

Land to expand the club only occurred when they allowed women to more or less become members of the club.

There was a push to create a major tennis centre at Kitchener Park (next to shithole) for the Western Australian Lawn Tennis Association.

The influence of the original grandstand was from a racecourse in Buenos Aires Argentina, McCubbin had flown all over the world to give ideas to the architects of what sort of stand he wanted. How many other venues in Australia have been influenced by the Argentinians!!

Fascinating read and it seems like Aussie Rules we have the Vics to thank for the establishment of tennis in WA...

Egan wrote:Ive been reading the book on Royal Kings Park and was going to share a few interesting insights into the construction of the first stand in 1925

Was a male only institution from 1904 - 1925 because men wanted to make sure they had priority court time. Even during the War, this did not change

Land to expand the club only occurred when they allowed women to more or less become members of the club.

There was a push to create a major tennis centre at Kitchener Park (next to shithole) for the Western Australian Lawn Tennis Association.

The influence of the original grandstand was from a racecourse in Buenos Aires Argentina, McCubbin had flown all over the world to give ideas to the architects of what sort of stand he wanted. How many other venues in Australia have been influenced by the Argentinians!!

Fascinating read and it seems like Aussie Rules we have the Vics to thank for the establishment of tennis in WA...

Junket!

I can just imagine what it would have been like at the top of those temporary stands. It would have been pretty rickety and hellraising.

I remember seeing Milton just before it was demolished with all its timber bleachers. The last few tournaments there would have been an interesting experience for the spectators in the nosebleed section.

When I see the depressing state of White City today...

If only they'd spruced it up for the Olympics.

Timbo wrote:When I see the depressing state of White City today...

If only they'd spruced it up for the Olympics.

The club is in a pretty long legal battle with John Alexander. Going to the High Court this year.

Basically, the club and Alexander had an agreement to redevelop but something hit the fan and Alexander wanted to go out on his own taking over the land without club involvement - which would've been difficult because Woollhara Council are behind the club.

Anyway, trhey are at loggerheads. If JA wins in the High Court, he'll redevelop the place and if White City Tennis Club win, they'll redevelop the place in a joint venture with Next Generation - who did the same with RKP and Memorial Drive.

http://www.whitecitytennis.info/

Either way something will happen to the site.

Those pics of Milton and Memorial Drive especially look like they just fold the grandstands up at the end of the day, spectators and all and just unfold it all again the next morning.

Mind you, back in the 50's you could've done that to the people and they'd never have known any different!

Thanks for the pics.

I also saw recently that tennis was played at the E.S. Marks Field in Sydney in the 50's.

Those crowds pretty much reflect Australia's dominance in the sport at that time. The fans back then were certainly spoilt for choice. Today, it's as bad as it's ever been. Hewitt has seen better days, our next bright hope is a spoilt little dickwod because he doesn't like to stay up late, Stosur is rather average in looks and ability and Aussie Kim isn't even Aussie. When the UK has a grand slam champion in the making and Australia doesn't, you know Australian tennis is in trouble. Big trouble.

Amaru wrote:Those crowds pretty much reflect Australia's dominance in the sport at that time. The fans back then were certainly spoilt for choice. Today, it's as bad as it's ever been. Hewitt has seen better days, our next bright hope is a spoilt little dickwod because he doesn't like to stay up late, Stosur is rather average in looks and ability and Aussie Kim isn't even Aussie. When the UK has a grand slam champion in the making and Australia doesn't, you know Australian tennis is in trouble. Big trouble.

Dude, it's not all bad...

We've got the world's top ranked 15, 16 and 17 year old boys.

Sam is currently No.8 in the world.

And while they're not all world beaters, we have five women who will qualify directly for the French Open.

It's unrealistic to ever expect Australia to return to its dominance in the sport in the 50s, 60s and 70s. The game has changed, as has the professional sporting landscape in both our country and the world.

stadiumking wrote:

Amaru wrote:Those crowds pretty much reflect Australia's dominance in the sport at that time. The fans back then were certainly spoilt for choice. Today, it's as bad as it's ever been. Hewitt has seen better days, our next bright hope is a spoilt little dickwod because he doesn't like to stay up late, Stosur is rather average in looks and ability and Aussie Kim isn't even Aussie. When the UK has a grand slam champion in the making and Australia doesn't, you know Australian tennis is in trouble. Big trouble.

Dude, it's not all bad...

We've got the world's top ranked 15, 16 and 17 year old boys.

Sam is currently No.8 in the world.

And while they're not all world beaters, we have five women who will qualify directly for the French Open.

It's unrealistic to ever expect Australia to return to its dominance in the sport in the 50s, 60s and 70s. The game has changed, as has the professional sporting landscape in both our country and the world.

On the second bold bit - you are 100% correct.

On the first bit. It's amazing how much the media overlooks this. It's like we have a male dominated view of tennis. She's going great guns and the media onlt talks about how bad the blokes are.

I don't know about having a particular male view of tennis.

Dellacqua gets into the top 50 and the WA media will begin their love affair with her again. Molik got a lot of press coverage.

Stosur is just very down to earth, never says anything controversial and there is nothing fancy about the way she plays tennis. She is just a good player.

I think the sports market in Australia is flooded and the fight for newspaper space is more competitive than ever...