Victoria Park, Australian rules football ground in Abbotsford, Melbourne, Australia
Victoria Park is an oval stadium in Abbotsford, an inner suburb of Melbourne, with facilities for sporting events and community activities spread across twelve hectares. The venue includes grandstands on multiple sides, changing rooms, and open grass areas that follow the typical layout of Australian sporting grounds of this kind.
Frederick Trenerry Brown and David Abbot established the sports ground in 1879 on Dight's Paddock, former cattle grazing land. The facility developed into a central venue for Australian Rules Football during the 20th century and was later added to the Victorian Heritage Register.
Collingwood supporters call the ground the Magpies' home, and the suburb's Depression-era residents were given free entry to games as sustenance workers. The Jack Ryder Stand, opened in 1929, was named after the cricketer Jack Ryder; the Sherrin Stand replaced the 1909 Member's Stand from 1969 and was finished in 1978.
The ground sits in Abbotsford, with the playing surface ringed by a continuous tiered stand of pale yellow-green seats broken by dark entryways. Collingwood played its last AFL match here in 1999, and since then AFLW, VFL and VFLW fixtures have kept the oval in use. Check which competition is scheduled before visiting.
Victoria Park's record crowd of 47,000 in April 1948, when Collingwood beat South Melbourne, was set at a ground that was then the third largest of the suburban VFL stadiums, behind only the Melbourne Cricket Ground and Princes Park. The stands seen today are the ring of pale yellow-green seats around the oval.
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