Known locally as “the G”, this sleek stadium that seats 100,000 people and resonates in cricket and football history, is “Australia's symbolic backyard,” says Traveller … “in many ways it's analogous to the great cathedrals of old in European civilisations, where a community gathers to celebrate or mourn."
“When five Melbourne gentlemen in 1838 each paid a one-guinea subscription (full adult annual membership is now $642, after a 25-year wait list) to form a cricket club, they couldn't have had any idea,” says Traveller. In 1853, it moved to its present site, a hollow in the old Police Paddock – "a lovely piece of bushland" – where the country's oldest sporting club” now manages what's considered the heartbeat of a sporting capital.”
The MCG is “a shrine, a citadel, a landmark, a totem," says Greg Baum, a cricket and football writer for the local Age newspaper. "It is to this city what the Eiffel Tower is to Paris and the Statue of Liberty is to New York. It symbolises Melbourne to the world. It inspires reverence."
As the birthplace of Test and one-day International cricket, home of the AFL Grand Final, and host to many other sporting events every year, “nothing can match the tradition and heritage of the MCG. Regarded as Victoria's spiritual home of sport, the MCG is Australia's premier sporting stadium, with a seating capacity of 100,024.
Memorable moments in the MCG’s history from the Herald Sun.