MCG to host its 100th Grand Final
Austadiums • Monday 19th September 2005
The Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) will host its one-hundredth Grand Final when Sydney meets West Coast on Saturday.
The great stadium staged its first Grand Final on September 27, 1902 when Collingwood defeated Essendon before an enthusiastic crowd of 35,000, a record attendance at the time.
Earlier Grand Finals had been played at the Junction Oval (1898-9), the East Melbourne Cricket Ground (1900) and at South Melbourne's Lake Oval in 1901.
In 1897, the first year of the Victorian Football League, a round robin series of matches was used to determine the premier team and, somewhat mysteriously, a similar system was revisited in 1924.
The arithmetic is as follows:
There were 22 Grand Finals from 1902-23, 17 from 1925-41, 47 from 1946-1990 (including 1948 and 1977 replays) and 14 from 1992-2005.
The Grand Final was played at Waverley Park in 1991 because of construction work for the Great Southern Stand and in the 1942-45 period the MCG was used as a military base.
While the MCG had hosted football finals matches for many years, there did not appear to be any rush to host the big game when an elimination system was eventually introduced.
According to MCC committee minutes, it wasn't until August 11, 1902 that the club decided to let the ground "for 15 per cent of gross takings for final football matches" played the following month.
Next year, cricket will also reach its century at the 'G. The much-anticipated Australia-England Ashes Test match on Boxing Day, 2006 will be the 100th Test match at the ground.
The great stadium staged its first Grand Final on September 27, 1902 when Collingwood defeated Essendon before an enthusiastic crowd of 35,000, a record attendance at the time.
Earlier Grand Finals had been played at the Junction Oval (1898-9), the East Melbourne Cricket Ground (1900) and at South Melbourne's Lake Oval in 1901.
In 1897, the first year of the Victorian Football League, a round robin series of matches was used to determine the premier team and, somewhat mysteriously, a similar system was revisited in 1924.
The arithmetic is as follows:
There were 22 Grand Finals from 1902-23, 17 from 1925-41, 47 from 1946-1990 (including 1948 and 1977 replays) and 14 from 1992-2005.
The Grand Final was played at Waverley Park in 1991 because of construction work for the Great Southern Stand and in the 1942-45 period the MCG was used as a military base.
While the MCG had hosted football finals matches for many years, there did not appear to be any rush to host the big game when an elimination system was eventually introduced.
According to MCC committee minutes, it wasn't until August 11, 1902 that the club decided to let the ground "for 15 per cent of gross takings for final football matches" played the following month.
Next year, cricket will also reach its century at the 'G. The much-anticipated Australia-England Ashes Test match on Boxing Day, 2006 will be the 100th Test match at the ground.
