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St. Kilda Cricket Ground

The Junction
Location	Lakeside Drive, St Kilda, Victoria
Coordinates	37°51′21″S 144°58′48″E / 37.85583°S 144.98°E / -37.85583; 144.98Coordinates: 37°51′21″S 144°58′48″E / 37.85583°S 144.98°E / -37.85583; 144.98
Opened	1852
Owner	Parks Victoria
Operator	Parks Victoria
Surface	Grass
Capacity	10,000
Tenants
Victorian Bushrangers (Pura Cup) St Kilda Saints (VFL) (1901-1964) Fitzroy Lions (VFL) (1970-1984)

The Junction Oval (officially, the St. Kilda Cricket Ground) is an historic sports ground in Melbourne, Australia. Its location near the St Kilda junction (the intersection of St Kilda's main street - Fitzroy Street - and St Kilda Road) gave rise to its nickname. It is located approximately five kilometres from the centre of Melbourne and is in the southernmost part of the large Albert Park sporting precinct.

The ground

The current capacity of the ground is around 8,000. The scoreboard (built 1954-55 by the St.Kilda Cricket Club) is a landmark of the St Kilda Junction area. There are two main heritage grandstands, the Blackie-Ironmonger stand built by the St.Kilda Cricket Club (named after two of St Kilda Club's Test cricketers: recently restored and in use), and the Kevin-Murray grandstand (named after one Fitzroy's greatest footballers: not in use). The remainder of the ground is terraced asphalt, with grass embankments at the rear. Older structures were demolished in the 1980s during a rationalisation of the ground. It is a very picturesque venue, with a top-quality turf playing area and a modern backdrop of tall buildings and parkland.

Football

Although the ground was originally built for cricket (The St.Kilda Cricket Club has played at the StKilda Cricket Ground since 1855), it is best known as the original home ground of the VFL/AFL club St. Kilda for many years. After much controversy, the Saints vacated the ground at the end of 1964.

The first ever women's footy match was played there in 1921.

In 1970, Fitzroy relocated to the venue and stayed until the end of 1984. Because of war time requistioning of their ground, South Melbourne were also based at the ground between 1944 and 1946. A total of 734 VFL/AFL matches were played there, the highest score being Fitzroy's 34 goals, 16 behinds (220) against North Melbourne in 1983.

The ground hosted the VFL/AFL Grand Final in the years of 1898, 1899 and 1944. In recent years, the Melbourne Football Club have based their Football Department at the oval and use it as a training ground.

The major winter tenant since the early 1990's has been the Victorian Amateur Football Association's Old Melburnians Football Club, who still call the ground Home today. Since moving to the ground in 1992, the Junction Oval has seen OMFC win 4 senior premierships, and in 2009 the club, which fields 5 sides in the VAFA, amazingly won four premierships in one year.

The annual Community Cup Australian rules event is played there.

A VAFA match featuring Old Melburnians at the Junction Oval looking towards Fitzroy Street from the hill on the outer

29th August 2009 saw the ground host VAFA finals, with Oakleigh 11.7 defeating Beaumaris 6 10 in the 1st semi final in C section. Umpires Hartwig and Anselmi oversaw the game.

Cricket

The Junction Oval is home to the St. Kilda Cricket Club, which plays in the Victorian Premier Cricket competition. The oval has also been used as an occasional home ground by the Victorian Bushrangers first class cricket team, most recently during the 2005-06 season when the Melbourne Cricket Ground was being prepared for the 2006 Commonwealth Games. It also played host to the 2008/09 Sheffield shield final, won by the Bushrangers, due to the unavailability of the MCG, because of the Bushfire relief concert.

Change of name

Cricket great Shane Warne has had a long association with the St.Kilda Cricket Ground, not only making his first class debut at the ground for Victoria in 1991, but also playing there on numerous occasions between 1989 and 2006 for his club side, St Kilda. Due to these connections, the club has now started proceedings to rename the venue to the Shane Warne Oval.^[1]

Record Attendance

46,973 people turned up on 20 May 1950 for a St. Kilda versus Carlton VFL match. This is a bigger crowd than any of the three Grand Finals played at the venue.

References

External links

• Summary record of all VFL matches at Junction Oval.
• History of Fitzroy Football Club, home grounds etc.
• St Kilda Football Club's reason for moving from Junction Oval.
• Junction Oval at Austadiums
• Sacred Heart Mission Community Cup
• The scoreboard, Junction Oval
• "Around the Grounds" - Web Documentary - Junction Street