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lol nice :lol:
too bad the stadium will now be under-utilised
One out of the box - fans have a window seat on 'rectangular codes'
RICHARD HINDS
May 6, 2010
Opening act ... the Kangaroos in a team photo at the new stadium, which will host its first game when Australia take on the Kiwis tomorrow night. Photo: Paul Rovere
In a city where the crowd of 80,645 that attended the game between Collingwood and Carlton at the MCG last Sunday was deemed slightly disappointing, the twist is unmistakable. At last, from tomorrow night, the chest-thumping sporting capital of the universe will boast a stadium small enough to cater for games not played on the AFL's vast stage.
That AAMI Park will have a capacity of about 30,000 spectators is not a true indication of the crowd-cap for league, union and, particularly, soccer in a city that, despite its AFL addiction, considers itself tolerant of all things football. State of Origin once almost filled the MCG, the Socceroos have done the same thing several times and the Bledisloe Cup has the 54,000-seat Etihad Stadium bulging.
However, while the opening act will be the sold-out Australia- New Zealand Test, AAMI Park is not about major events. It was built to enable Melburnians to see each week the games they have lumped together under the ''rectangular codes'' umbrella as the rest of the world sees them. Up close and personal, not from some distant AFL eyrie.
The MCG will always be Melbourne's sporting cathedral. AAMI Park is a non-denominational chapel. A tribute to the city's ecumenical football tastes.
Gazing up yesterday from the perfectly manicured turf - cut to league standards, unspoiled by AFL wear and tear and devoid of the usual confusing mixture of inter-code markings - it was clear the ground would serve its purpose well. From the sideline, where Jarryd Hayne and Billy Slater performed calisthenics for a photographer, you felt the two Kangaroos could not merely exchange high fives with the fans in the front rows, but a wink and a nod with those in the highest perches only 45 metres away.
Sitting in level 2, row A, seat 127, right over the centreline, you might quite sniff the liniment. Or at least, for those Melburnians whose appreciation of the rugbies and soccer has been geniused by their distance from the action, grasp some of the subtleties - and, in selected cases, the brutality - of the Storm/Rebels/Victory/Heart.
Inside, like most modern stadiums, AAMI Park is more a triumph of form and function than a thing of beauty. With its green bucket seats and modular grandstand that is indistinguishable from side to side, or end to end, it lacks warmth and charm. If the organically grown Lord's or SCG have a certain ambience even when occupied only by seagulls, it will be the fans who create the atmospherics in the new venue - something enabled by their closeness to the action.
Kangaroos coach Tim Sheens likened AAMI Park to Skilled Park - a comparison that would not please the Victorian state government, which spent $280 million on something rather more substantial than the Gold Coast's cookie-cutter facility. But then, coaches tend to worry more about practicalities than aesthetics. So, even as a worryingly large amount of workmen put the finishing touches two days before the kick-off, most will be pleased by the changerooms, the lap-pool and the other so-called state-of-the-art facilities.
''It's a hell of a lot better than playing next door, I can tell you that,'' Sheens said of the Storm's dilapidated Olympic Park stronghold.
Like the Water Cube swimming pool in Beijing, upon which AAMI Park appears to be loosely modelled, the great distinguishing feature is the facade - the eye-catching bubble wrap that can light up in club colours and sets the stadium apart from its neighbours - the MCG and Melbourne Park - in the what is, all Victorian Government propaganda aside, a world-class sporting precinct.
AAMI Park, according to its operators, ''moves away from industrial aesthetic to sculptural design''. Which is a rather fancy way of saying that the outer skin, which also forms part of the impressive roof that covers the more functional seating, is not some drab, rectangular blight on the inner-city landscape.
As the codes jostle in an increasingly competitive market, a significant question is whether the stadium's intimacy will ensure its ''rectangular'' tenants are even more warmly embraced by Melburnians.
Doubters should know the same site was occupied, in the 1930s, by the Melbourne Motordrome, where, among other sporting epics, the owners held an ostrich race in which the birds were ''ridden'' by cardboard cut-out jockeys. Which is to say, this is Melbourne, where the old line is never more appropriate. Build it and they will come.
I think it could get extended to 45k, cant remember where i read it though.
