Resource Two 2nd Tier AFL Venues for Perth

MrWoollie

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I'm sorry but why would East Fremantle move to Rockingham?
For the same reason West Perth moved to Joondalup. East Freo are enclosed and the suburbs are growing south and south-east. They have a home ground that is apparently being improved but historically has had the worst facilities for spectators of any ground. Only Claremont has been historically close to being as bad, but at least you could get there by train.
The more complex move that works better geographically (but will never happen) would be for South Freo to move south and East Freo to move to fremantle oval and East Freo oval becomes a community asset.
 
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For the same reason West Perth moved to Joondalup. East Freo are enclosed and the suburbs are growing south and south-east. They have a home ground that is apparently being improved but historically has had the worst facilities for spectators of any ground. Only Claremont has been historically close to being as bad, but at least you could get there by train.
The more complex move that works better geographically (but will never happen) would be for South Freo to move south and East Freo to move to fremantle oval and East Freo oval becomes a community asset.

Moving to Fremantle oval would solve the stadium issue for Easts.
 

kranger

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Another consideration for where the Fremantle teams are based, is the travel after school for the teenagers in the junior teams for trainings.

With both of them being located on the coast, it’s a bit of a disadvantage for the kids in the Armadale area.

It’s a one way 40min trip by car or 90min trip by public transport if they don’t have someone that can drive them. That’s a big ask compared to the kids around Fremantle, and could see them less likely to commit to the teams.

If the two Freo teams were based at Cockburn (as an example) and one team covered east of the freeway and the other west of the freeway, it would balance that disadvantage a bit.

But an even bigger example of this, if you ignore Peel and West Perth considering how far south and north they are of the City, there are 5 teams west of the CBD and only 2 teams east of the CBD. All those western suburbs kids are clearly at an advantage under the current locations.
 

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Another consideration for where the Fremantle teams are based, is the travel after school for the teenagers in the junior teams for trainings.

With both of them being located on the coast, it’s a bit of a disadvantage for the kids in the Armadale area.

It’s a one way 40min trip by car or 90min trip by public transport if they don’t have someone that can drive them. That’s a big ask compared to the kids around Fremantle, and could see them less likely to commit to the teams.

If the two Freo teams were based at Cockburn (as an example) and one team covered east of the freeway and the other west of the freeway, it would balance that disadvantage a bit.
But surely that's an argument for relocation to Cockburn, not to Rockingham.
 

kranger

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But surely that's an argument for relocation to Cockburn, not to Rockingham.

To Cockburn or even Gosnells would definitely help the Armadale area, if only one club was to move. You would also have to redrawing the catchment zones as well. But I was more highlighting the issue rather than the solution.

After all in my suggestion with East Freo moving to Rockingham for the future population down there, I also had Perth moving down to Gosnells to include the Armadale area in their zone and be more central to their whole zone.

You could even move Perth and not either of the Fremantle teams, and redraw the zones, and it would mostly assist with the issue for now.
 

kranger

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If the WACA Ground does get this development, I see that to the benefit of the WAFC, as it means their can be a boutique oval in the CBD should they ever want to use it. Instead the WAFC could focus their attention away from the CBD.

I imagine the WAFC have three pathways:

• coverage (which I’ll discuss now);
• consolidated (which I’ll discuss another time); and
• hybrid (which would be a combination of the two.

In the ‘coverage’ pathway for facilities development, the WAFC should look to this future population layout to develop one of their 2nd Tier AFL venues in the south, and one in the north. I’m thinking Joondalup and Rockingham, which will both be connected by train and a town centre in their area.

This could be the strategy to get all the current facilities upgraded, as well as the new 2nd Tier AFL venues.


Short Term
• WACA Ground can be used as a Tier 2 venue when available;
• East Freo move down to Rockingham and their new field becomes the Tier 2 venue of the south (paid for, by the local developer contributions for the new housings);
• Shark Park can be redeveloped to be community sports fields;
• South Freo‘s zone becomes all the area to the north and west of Cockburn; whilst East Freo’s zone becomes from south of Cockburn to Rockingham area;
• Joondalup Arena is the focus as a Tier 2 venue for the north;
• Subiaco temporarily remain at Leederville Oval to help get it redeveloped;
• Perth temporarily remain at Lathlain Park to help get it redeveloped;
• Bassendean Oval gets redeveloped with funding from land sales; and
• Fremantle Oval gets redeveloped through the interest from the City of Fremantle.

Long Term
• Perth later moves to Gosnells with a new field, that caters for the south-east corridor (paid for, by the local developer contributions for the new housings);
• East Freo lose the Armadale area from their catchment zone; Perth pick up the Armadale area but lose the South Perth / Vic Park area; East Perth pick up the South Perth / Vic Park area for their catchment zone;
• Subiaco later move to Yanchep along with their zone, leap frogging over West Perth and what they did 30 years ago, to a new field for the far northern suburbs(paid for, by the local developer contributions for the new housings);
• West Perth gets Subiaco’s and East Perth’s old northern sections; whilst Claremont get Subiaco‘s old southern section.

This would get every club in a venue with acceptable facilities, and make the layout of all of the grounds look like this.

View attachment 928957

Next time I’ll talk about the consolidated venue approach.

I previously talked about the ‘coverage pathway’ of getting teams and facilities to spread across Perth. Today let’s talk about the ‘consolidate pathway’ of using the minimum number of facilities so you can concentrate funding.

Most will likely hate this arrangement as it takes footy out of Fremantle, just like I don’t like it as it takes footy out of Bassendean. But it’s a model to discuss the concept.

• Peel stay at Rushton Park and becomes the 2nd Tier AFL Venue of the south.
• South and East Freo move to Cockburn to share with the Dockers. Souths zone is north and west of Cockburn, Easts zone is east and south of Cockburn.
• Subiaco move to Claremont and share with the Tigers.
• Swans move to Lathlain Park and share with the Eagles and Demons.
• East Perth move to Arena Joondalup and share with the Falcons, which becomes the 2nd Tier AFL Venue of the north.

Those last three club movements, would require some redistributing of the zone catchment areas in the northern suburbs, but it should be too difficult.

Excluding Peel which is a ground with a single club, the four grounds with two or three clubs have two fields in close proximity to handle the increased demands of training. Claremont Oval has Claremont Showgrounds, Cockburn has Legacy Park etc.

Each of these five grounds have existing or proposed upgrades to the facilities to be of the highest standard compared to the four fields that would be left .

89F84021-E0DE-47DB-A7D4-B14CBF60D520.jpeg


This pathway allows the concentration of funding in fewer grounds, which can also provide them with even better facilities compared to only having a single club. It does however mean there would be less fields spread across the City to a higher standard.

Next time I’ll discuss the idea of Hybrid Pathway, for which there is so many possible choices, so I’ll focus more on the idea rather than the implementation.
 

kranger

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Looks like if the redevelopment goes ahead at Freo Oval, it should meet the AFL Tier Two standards.

It could be great for hosting every WAFL GF.

Surely East Freo should move in as well, to increase the usage and benefit of such a facility.

D4841DFC-489F-46EB-AE9D-474E867D2376.jpeg
 
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I went along on Sunday, and if that was half capacity then I shudder to think what it would be like with double the crowd. I guess you could have a lot of people standing in the carpark between the Victoria Pavilion and the oval, but most wouldn't be able to see a thing.

But yeah, demolish the current SFFC clubrooms, build a decent stand there that seats a couple of thousand, shift the oval west so there isn't a massive space between the main stand and the oval, build a big grass hill in the south east corner and hopefully some decent seats with cover in the north east corner.

I suspect this is one of those things though that the council will support in principle but will refuse any proposal that gets put forward.
 

TWLS

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I went along on Sunday, and if that was half capacity then I shudder to think what it would be like with double the crowd. I guess you could have a lot of people standing in the carpark between the Victoria Pavilion and the oval, but most wouldn't be able to see a thing.

But yeah, demolish the current SFFC clubrooms, build a decent stand there that seats a couple of thousand, shift the oval west so there isn't a massive space between the main stand and the oval, build a big grass hill in the south east corner and hopefully some decent seats with cover in the north east corner.

I suspect this is one of those things though that the council will support in principle but will refuse any proposal that gets put forward.
The Current record crowd for Fremantle Oval -In the hey day of the WAFL and our family was there.
23,109, when South Fremantle beat East Fremantle on 4 June 1979.
I think the current capacity is 17,500 and can only ponder what any redevelopment will bring capacity wise, and what should it be.
 
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The Current record crowd for Fremantle Oval -In the hey day of the WAFL and our family was there.
23,109, when South Fremantle beat East Fremantle on 4 June 1979.
I think the current capacity is 17,500 and can only ponder what any redevelopment will bring capacity wise, and what should it be.

Standards were a tad different in the 70's, with people happy to stand shoulder to shoulder and piss into troughs.

But in any case, I don't think it needs to have a 20k capacity. 4k seats and another 10k in room on hills and terraces would be fine. This shot shows just how much room there is (i.e plenty) to do whatever they want to do:

120842274_10158540433017310_6611345199644400199_o.jpg
 

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The WACA ground has previous funding from the Feds, and today got funding from the state.

It will upgrade the facilities, decrease the capacity, and lengthen the field for footy, there’s a link available in my quote below from the WACA thread in the stadium forum on BigFooty.

The problem is, cricket is still played there during the AFL Women’s and AFL preseason, so it wouldn’t be available for this purpose, since it is still the state facility for cricket first and foremost.
As a non Western Australian, what was the thinking behind shortening the length of the WACA originally?
 
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The WACA has been through a few iterations:

1603437117824.png


This was due to baseball being played there back in the day and and an ongoing tussle with Gloucester Park (the trotting track next door) about redeveloping parts of the site. The two entities, the WACA and the trots are all on one land title, I think.
 

big_e

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The WACA has been through a few iterations:

View attachment 992833

This was due to baseball being played there back in the day and and an ongoing tussle with Gloucester Park (the trotting track next door) about redeveloping parts of the site. The two entities, the WACA and the trots are all on one land title, I think.
WATA bought the land for Gloucester Park off the WACA in 1915.

I think the cutting off the ends was just because they always had the boundaries roped off and you were a ******* mile away from the pitch.
 
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WATA bought the land for Gloucester Park off the WACA in 1915.

I think the cutting off the ends was just because they always had the boundaries roped off and you were a ******* mile away from the pitch.

Back when Adam was a boy, they played 2 grade games at one time on the WACA - it was the longest ground (along with Perth Oval) before Perth FC moved to Lathlain in the late 50s,
 

kranger

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I notice that in the 2021 State Election both major parties have pledged $20m to redevelop East Fremantle Oval:


I checked the Town of East Freo website and found this.



51E2796F-60BA-476B-89B9-A8D28860ABF0.jpeg


D47B674C-1CF1-4F15-AA8B-950C6CAE347B.jpeg


Including a 3D fly through


It would seem this kills off the idea of Sharks and Bulldogs both playing out of an upgraded Fremantle Oval, to give enough revenue to sustain it as a 2nd Tier AFL Venue. Perhaps it can still be sustained without the Sharks.
 

TWLS

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Perhaps the Community aspect of this ground as well is why it is getting a 20 Million dollar kiss of life. Once a facility like this disappears it is gone forever.
Have no idea what the surrounding catchment area is like for Sports Clubs and Schools.
Personally never liked the ground at all back in the WAFL hey day.
 

MrWoollie

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Personally never liked the ground at all back in the WAFL hey day.
With you there.

Was the hardest ground to get to. Furthest from a train station (nearly 4km from both Freo and Nth Freo), limited buses and the worst facilities of any ground. Only Claremont came close in facility sh*teness.

And the supporters. The only ground as a kid I was scared to go to. The feral abuse that adults, old ladies, everyone directed at me and my mate was terrible. Drinks 'accidently' spilled on us (the old ladies thought that was funny), thrown out of the pie van queue for not being an East Freo supporter, having to take a leak behind the toilet block because 'that's only for east Freo supporters' and my mate being concussed by an elbow from behind as we were leaving the ground.

To this day I think the best redevelopment idea for East Freo oval would be to have a supporters day, get everyone there, and then drop a tactical nuke on the place. The average intelligence of WA would go up, the criminal coult would go down and the worst, feral elements of the WA AFL supporter base would disappear.
 
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Perhaps the Community aspect of this ground as well is why it is getting a 20 Million dollar kiss of life. Once a facility like this disappears it is gone forever.
Have no idea what the surrounding catchment area is like for Sports Clubs and Schools.
Personally never liked the ground at all back in the WAFL hey day.

I always thought it was a reasonable enough ground, it was just in a s**t of a position. Way way back in the day you could park in the Richmond raceway infield, but when that went it was so bloody difficult to find a park, and of course there was zero public transport options.

I can understand if they'd want to keep it as a training base and a ground for local footy to use - and maybe that's the idea here, but it playing both clubs out of Freo Oval and improving spectator facilities there seems like such a no brainer.
 

TWLS

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Off topic but related to a long way in the future.
As Perth spreads North up the coast to Yanchep with solid growth the WAFL is perhaps thinking about it or not for a 2nd Tier AFL ground or at Joondalup.
Anyhow they have scheduled for the first time a WAFL match this season at Yanchep involving West Perth and West Coast Eagles.
The primary aim presently is to tap into all of the new population up there being in West Perths Zone, who should have big numbers to recruit from, down the track.
The Wanneroo Council has thrown its support behind this fixture for good reasons, one being to give notice to the Joondalup Council we are up there to stay and will likely further develop the Yanchep Ground for future WAFL games.
Historical Note -- In circa late 1990`s the Joondalup Council was created out of the original Wanneroo Councils Southern area. One of our wheelie bins has Wanneroo Council on it. There is no love lost behind the scenes between the Councils.
I know everybody still thinks of the current situation grounds wise in Perth but the to be big population up in that region cannot be ignored.
 

Johnny Bananas

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Historical Note -- In circa late 1990`s the Joondalup Council was created out of the original Wanneroo Councils Southern area. One of our wheelie bins has Wanneroo Council on it. There is no love lost behind the scenes between the Councils.
With everything going on in the world at the moment, councils still have time and energy to hold petty rivalries? Good grief.
 

kranger

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Well Joondalup is halfway between Yanchep and Perth. So a 2nd Tier Stadium there make a good centre for the north-western corridor.

IMG_2853.JPG
 
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