Christopher Pyne: Move the scoreboard, flatten the hill and build a new grandstand to turn Adelaide Oval into a true stadium

Christopher Pyne reckons Adelaide Oval will never host the AFL grand final ... unless we plug its “gaping hole” with a new northern grandstand. He even has a name in mind.

Covid-19 might stop the MCG being able to host the AFL grand final.

Listening to the cacophony of complaint last week about the game being slated to be played in Perth, rather than Adelaide, was mind-numbing to say the least.

While no one in South Australia wants to hear it, let me burst everyone’s bubble: So long as there is a bigger stadium available, the Adelaide Oval will never host the AFL grand final. Never. Period.

The reason the AFL headquarters chose Perth over Adelaide has nothing to do with the Vics hating the Croweaters. That’s passé rubbish.

It’s a convenient distraction from the truth. Adelaide Oval isn’t completed. It’s really that simple.

In case it has escaped people’s attention, let me point out the obvious. There’s a great big gap at the northern end of the oval opposite the Riverbank Stand where another stand should be. It’s air space in need of being filled.

It is possible Adelaide Oval could end up hosting the grand final this year, but only because WA Premier Mark McGowan might shut down Perth again because of the Covid-19-positive truck drivers who have been discovered in recent days in Western Australia. That won’t change the fact that the Adelaide Oval Stadium Authority needs to urgently address the unfinished business of finishing the oval and the gaping hole it creates in our complaints about not hosting the AFL grand final.

I have long argued that the grand final should be rotated around the AFL-playing states. It should be done that way as a matter of course.

While the MCG is a superb venue, there’s no rule in the book of common sense that says the grand final must always be at the MCG. But I can’t part the sea either.

The AFL leadership have decreed that the GF will always be at the MCG and sure, while it is a constant reminder that the AFL grew out of the VFL, it’s the way the competition has been set up and it doesn’t look like it’s going to change anytime soon.

It took a bat, a pangolin or a lab experiment in Wuhan to get the grand final moved in the first place, and I can’t see anyone arguing that we want a global pandemic to happen every now and again in order to share the hosting of the final of the national winter game around the states.

Regardless of the pandemic, the vagaries of interstate travel, the rules around quarantine or the actions of state premiers, the AFL will always look to maximise the number of spectators through the turnstiles at every game, especially the grand final.

Sport is business. It’s entertainment. It isn’t a charity. That means getting bums on seats – people who pay for the privilege of watching the game we love. You can get more bums on seats at Optus Stadium in Perth than you can at Adelaide Oval – 60,000 versus 53,500.

Adelaide Oval is fantastic. While, in my opinion, the “powers at be” may have overdone the number of names adorning the eastern stand, there’s no doubt that it is a first-class sporting venue and one that, despite all the naysayers, makes us immeasurably proud.

I’m sure the same will be said of the proposed multipurpose arena in years to come. But I do think Adelaide Oval can be improved. It should be completed.

At the risk of having to enter a witness protection program, I propose a new stand at the northern end.

There’s no doubt that a new stand could be designed to add an extra 6500 seats at least. We could call it the Cornes Stand (that should please the Crows and Power fans given the playing and coaching careers of Graham, Kane and Chad).

Adelaide Oval major events and tourism manager Laura Robinson on the Adelaide Oval roof climb. Should a new northern grandstand replace the hill, the Moreton Bay figs and the heritage scoreboard? Vote in our poll on this page and have your say below.

That would make Adelaide Oval the largest AFL stadium outside Melbourne in the land. A good designer should be able to plan it so it is constructed in front of the hundred-year-old fig trees that grow on the boundary behind the hill. I’m afraid there would be no more hill. Fans who want “the hill experience” at the cricket a few times a year would need to content themselves with sitting in a fabulous new bar with tonnes of atmosphere looking out at the cricket from an elevated stand so they can see the whole proceedings instead.

Now for the sacrilege.

The cricket scoreboard would have to be moved! I’m sorry if I’ve caused you to spill your Just Right all over the kitchen bench.

It’s in the way of the fourth and final piece in the completion of the Adelaide Oval stadium.

The truth is, much as we love it, and we do, I propose that it be deconstructed piece by piece and reconstructed outside the stadium in the gardens that surround the oval.

The modern Egyptians moved the Temple of Abu Simbel when it was threatened by the rising Nile River, so I’m sure we could all cope with the scoreboard becoming a terrific new monument to the heritage of our city.

Then we can lay claim to hosting anything we want on the sporting calendar and make Adelaide Oval, and our clubs that use it, even more viable and successful.