Geelong vs pies final should not be at the mcg.

[dangerwood]

Comments like these are why interstate sides dislike Victorian clubs so much, this narrative that the footy world should revolve around the CBD of Melbourne and everyone else should confirm into line.

No the people of geelong shouldn’t drive 75-100+km through peak hour traffic over 2hrs on a Friday evening to get to a home game at the MCG, then drive home their kids by 1am that morning.

What a phenomenal advantage to the geelong football club and it’s loyal supporter base for finishing two games clear ontop of the ladder.

AFL only cares about $$$ not about equality and fans.

And the whinging that Geelong is spoilt and doing something wrong because we still have our home ground shits me so much.
Everyone had home grounds and it was great, Geelong didn't change the system. Don't blame Geelong for managing to keep theirs or suggest Geelong should now just give up their ground and join the MCG because that's just how it should be.
Home grounds are great, I loved going to Princess Park (Vic Park not so much).
If it was a genuine neutral venue, like VFL park finals use to be, I wouldn't mind as much.

 

[dangerwood]

Doesn’t take anywhere near that long on the worst day,

Well that's just not true. It does and even longer on occassion.

 

[dangerwood]

Rebuild the mcg to match your ground?
I can’t believe there isn’t a standard size, and both yours and sydneys grounds are not either made to comply, or not be used!

Haha so the standard size of AFL should be a cricket ground? Yep that makes sense.
Also, there is a standard size for AFL, it is a minimum of 135 long and 110m wide of which GMHBA is more than both.

 

[dangerwood]

I know this is probably unwise of me to comment on this thread. Why would a Cat fan be upset. They have a great setup. 16 games in Victoria every year, 8 of those with a obvious home ground advantage. No other team in the league has their own home ground. It's a huge win for the Cats. The games "away" aren't that bad either. Marquee games against Hawthorn for Easter Monday and Collingwood and Tigers seems like a good set up. Maximise big crowds and exposure while still a damn good chance to win.

I still remember when Richmond had to go down to Geelong in 2017. Lost by a couple of goals late in the year. I think the last time before that was 2006, and I think it may have been Wayne Campbells last game (he ended on 297 for what it's worth). It has always felt like the 2017 finals series started this statement from Geelong. Tigers beat them a few weeks after going down in a close game in Geelong, and it was high on the agenda for awhile. Chris Scott included. He would always bring it up. Made an issue out of it. Probably distracted and hurt their chances to be honest.

If Geelong are good enough to win the flag this year, they will. And Geelong will not say a peep about where the games are played.

Well to quote Django "8 with an obvious home ground advantage" (it's actually 9) but yes you're spot on, we have our own home ground and in a 22 game season (plus finals) we get our home ground advantage 9 times.

I really feel for Richmond though, must be rough playing 17 games in Victoria and having to travel all the way to Marvel for 3 of those. Imagine how rough it would be having to play your home final at Marvel and needing to travel 2km down the road, that would be pretty taxing.

 

[Bunnings]

Until Geelong want to move from September participants to premiers they will embrace playing on real football grounds.

Hahahahahahah September participants! From a bagger gold

 

[Freshwater]

Geelong gets more games than us and North and StKilda at the MCG year in year out, and then have the nerve to say they are hard done by. The home ground was built by tax payers not the football club, and get a tremendous advantage there because not many non Geelong fans get access to matches and the umpireing is very biased in those situations. They talk about ‘fairness’ when they have these benefits year in year out.

 

[FreoFan85]

Agree with the op. If they allow home and away fixtures at a venue it should be locked in for finals.

If that means games at Skoda stadium or the cattery than so be it.

However, it should be locked in from the start of the year (not dependent on who is playing)

 

[HairyO]

Agree with the op. If they allow home and away fixtures at a venue it should be locked in for finals.

If that means games at Skoda stadium or the cattery than so be it.

However, it should be locked in from the start of the year (not dependent on who is playing)

Collingwood would probably choose to play at Vic Park, with traditional Vic Park umpiring. The AFL dictates to all Victorian teams where they will play their games. Geelong isnt special.

The mods should delete this thread and just sticky any of the dozens of these posts which happen over the years, then hide the post when Geelong inevitably fails at some point during the finals.

 

[Seeds]

For all those who argue that its biggest home state stadium, like that should be a thing, well thats wrong too. In fact its not even biggest home city stadium.

gws played a prelim final at their tiny stadium (which has a smaller capacity then kardinia park currently has with construction) and they had much bigger stadiums available in their own city let alone their own state.

does everyone forget this?

and those other stadiums would of been neutral at least. The mcg is not neutral when playing the pies. Its an away final for a team that is from a different city.

 

[dangerwood]

Geelong gets more games than us and North and StKilda at the MCG year in year out, and then have the nerve to say they are hard done by. The home ground was built by tax payers not the football club, and get a tremendous advantage there because not many non Geelong fans get access to matches and the umpireing is very biased in those situations. They talk about ‘fairness’ when they have these benefits year in year out.

Oh you're right sorry, lucky us getting more games at MCG. I feel pretty bad about it, how about we give those MCG games to you?

It's all good, I get it now.

So we finished 1st and earned the right to play at the MCG again (pretty lucky right, I know) and Collingwood finished 4th and earned that right to play at the MCG. Soooo not much point finishing 1st.....so rather than play a home and away season and winning games to earn the right to play at the MCG, let's just get rid of the ladder, skip straight to finals, everyone plays at the G and if you lose you're out.

 

[Seeds]

Collingwood would probably choose to play at Vic Park, with traditional Vic Park umpiring. The AFL dictates to all Victorian teams where they will play their games. Geelong isnt special.

The mods should delete this thread and just sticky any of the dozens of these posts which happen over the years, then hide the post when Geelong inevitably fails at some point during the finals.

Vic park is 3km from the mcg. There is no travel factor involved for players or club. Plus pies play 15 games a year at the mcg.

when geelong plays pies at the mcg there will be 75000 pies supporters. This has an influence on the outcome. Umpires are biased towards dominant crowds. The mentality of playing in front of hostile crowds is also a factor. Pies are also far more familiar with playing on the ground then geelong.

your argument is not even remotely equivalent

 

[Seeds]

Confused? How many fans do Geelong have? Why can’t they buy tickets to an MCG game? MCG members are neutral as well. So why are you in such a negative mindset?

(even though your dismissal of GF bias is plainly wrong, I won’t address it here because you’ve clearly got an agenda)

Cos most geelong fans dont live in melbourne . on a friday night game my family wouldnt get home until 1am. Much easier to just watch on tv.

and dont give me the oh you are not real supporters then. If it was in reverse most pies supporters would also stay home and watch it on tv then do 4 hours of travelling on a friday evening/night.

 

[Seeds]

Yeah that’s not viable.

Why? Its not about crowds.

 

[MagpieJo]

Your opinions of ground dimensions are fine, but the point remains that Geelong had a chance to resize their ground to be a more conventional size (like they did in Perth) but chose not to.

pare we really going to pretend that Collingwood fans aren’t going to still come out in droves if the final was in Geelong? Both sporter bases have access to tickets at the same time and I don’t think a one hour drive will stop any of them. You would probably see more Collingwood fans than Geelong fans at Kardinia Park. Even if it were 50/50, you are still locking out thousands of Geelong fans. Is that fair for them to miss out?

Europe or the United States don’t have 10 teams located in the same region either so it’s not comparable.

If you are good enough to win you will win anywhere and same goes for Collingwood at Kardinia park. So why then lock out 60 thousand fans?

Great post

a Geelong poster said the GF is different because it’s not just fans of the 2 teams, (and that’s another fight right there!) pretty sure ticket allocations will be 50/50 so get your supporters to buy a ticket

the AFL is not a charity organisation, the cats should understand that all too well, could they afford their overdose of free agents on the taking from their home games? It’s about money, ever since it became the AFL, and Collingwood, especially in big games prints money. It’s not always to our advantage! Same as reporting, Collingwood sells papers. Definitely not to our advantage!

last time I went to kardinia park for footy I was in the cheer squad and had to catch the red rattler there! Up our end I believe there were a couple of bench seats but most of us had to stand! By the sound of it it’s even worse right now!

it’s about money, it’s a business, blind freddy can see 95,000 tickets brings in more dollars than 50,000, not to mention buying food and drink! that’s why we don’t play there during the year, the ground can’t accommodate enough fans.

 

[MagpieJo]

Why? Its not about crowds.

No it’s not, it’s about money.

 

[MagpieJo]

For all those who argue that its biggest home state stadium, like that should be a thing, well thats wrong too. In fact its not even biggest home city stadium.

gws played a prelim final at their tiny stadium (which has a smaller capacity then kardinia park currently has with construction) and they had much bigger stadiums available in their own city let alone their own state.

does everyone forget this?

and those other stadiums would of been neutral at least. The mcg is not neutral when playing the pies. Its an away final for a team that is from a different city.

You get just as many tickets allocated as we do don’t you?

 

[HairyO]

Vic park is 3km from the mcg. There is no travel factor involved for players or club. Plus pies play 15 games a year at the mcg.

when geelong plays pies at the mcg there will be 75000 pies supporters. This has an influence on the outcome. Umpires are biased towards dominant crowds. The mentality of playing in front of hostile crowds is also a factor. Pies are also far more familiar with playing on the ground then geelong.

your argument is not even remotely equivalent

So the problem is spending an hour on a bus?

Really?

 

[kickazz]

You guys should have resized the ground when you took hundreds of millions of taxpayer money in the first place.

At the time the ground upgrade commenced, the dimensions were not a problem for anyone. (Just as different dimensions of Waverly, Princes Park, etc were not a problem)

Those tantrums only started years later.

 

[Achy Blakey Heart]

It was against Geelong in 2004

Ahh yes....why did this happen?

 

[Engimal v3]

Of course it's unfair, but KP is being redeveloped.

 

[MagpieJo]

Vic park is 3km from the mcg. There is no travel factor involved for players or club. Plus pies play 15 games a year at the mcg.

when geelong plays pies at the mcg there will be 75000 pies supporters. This has an influence on the outcome. Umpires are biased towards dominant crowds. The mentality of playing in front of hostile crowds is also a factor. Pies are also far more familiar with playing on the ground then geelong.

your argument is not even remotely equivalent

It’s not our fault ofyour supporters don’t buy tickets, pretty sure the allocations are even

 

[BringFevBack2021]

No, we also have to play home finals at the G when we'd all be lucky to play 1 or 2 matches there each season. The comp is genuinely bullshit when it comes to this stuff. If you finish higher then finals should be at your home ground.

Absolutely agree, Marvel plays quicker than every stadium it is a completely different game there. You deserve the opportunity to play to your familiarity and comfort if you won the right to a home final.

 

[SplintWhisky]

the AFL is not a charity organisation

I mean, they kind of are with their ridiculous tax free concessions

 

[Foxx]

Remember you have an AFL club in a regional city.
And the cultural advantage that comes with that.
Be thankful for that.

 

[The_Todd07]

Seems to be an overwhelming theme amongst the people most vocal in opposition to us getting home finals.
Almost like their teams gains the most from things staying as is