Michelangelo Rucci: Adelaide football club seeking direction on future of headquarters
Crows members on Monday night get their chance to clear away some questions on the Adelaide Football Club’s plans to move to the city - and pose some new questions.
Michelangelo Rucci
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Malcolm Blight was the “messiah” who delivered the Adelaide Football Club to the promised land with the breakthrough AFL premiership in 1997 - and the successful defence in 1998. But who will be “Moses” parting the River Torrens to get the Crows out of the western suburbs?
On Monday, from 6pm at the Ian McLachlan Room on Adelaide Oval’s western flank, this topic is bound to dominate question time during the Adelaide Football Club’s annual members’ meeting - after its annual general meeting.
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After 30 years at West Lakes - and after considering 30 potential sites away from Football Park - the Crows have settled on the north parklands which are rich in South Australian football history from the pioneer days from 1861-1877.
It would seem sensible that a club named “Adelaide” would have its base inside Colonel William Light’s grand design for the Adelaide CBD. Had Isobel Redmond’s Liberal Opposition found its way to government in 2010 - and blocked the redevelopment of Adelaide Oval to put up a new sports arena with a roof at the western end of North Tce, in place of the new Royal Adelaide Hospital - the Crows would have found a new home in the parklands across the street.
A decade later, the preferred option is the Adelaide Aquatic Centre at North Adelaide - 2.1 kilometres north of Adelaide Oval (a kilometre closer than the oft-mentioned alternative of Thebarton Oval, in the western suburbs).
More than 20 years after the Crows had to pull down a campaign to get them to Norwood Oval (a ground that is too small to prepare an AFL team), there has been the opportunistic move by Norwood, Payneham and St Peter’s mayor Robert Bria to lure the Adelaide Football Club to the east.
Mayor Bria would savour the $15 million the Crows have secured from the federal government to invest in the Payneham Memorial Swimming Centre - and he is prepared to offer adjoining Patterson Reserve on Payneham and OG roads as a new training base. His fellow councillors are not so keen.
Once again South Australia - a state that in the late 1970s endured a royal commission to determine the specifications of floodlights at Football Park - is caught in political by-plays to settle on sporting infrastructure. As the intense debates of the past few months have proven, dealing with the Adelaide City Council and appeasing the self-appointed guardians of the greenbelt Adelaide Parklands is a task that seems more difficult than winning an AFL premiership.
So the members’ questions - and the Crows’ desire to clear away what the club’s front office calls “misinformation” - on Monday will be just as intense.
One question seems inevitable. Why do the Crows need to be in the city precinct when other AFL clubs - in particular Hawthorn, Essendon and Fremantle at Dingley, Tullamarine and Cockburn Central - have opted to move away from the CBD and their traditional bases to concentrate on building elite facilities? Same with big-time European football clubs.
What’s in a city move for the Crows members who heavily compromised in the move to Adelaide Oval in 2014?
As the Adelaide City Council is refusing to allow for a licensed facility at the aquatic centre, there will be no pre- or post-game “Shed” to entertain the members. Club chief executive Andrew Fagan says the members will be encouraged to enjoy the spoils of O’Connell Street and the city centre on match days.
AFL training sessions are now during “office hours” rather after 5pm on Tuesday and Thursdays, so how many members will get to see the Crows practice in the north parklands?
Adelaide does deny itself a commercial edge in the north parklands where it will not be able to match AFL rival West Coast in selling naming rights to its training grounds. The Eagles took over Lathlain Park, the old home of WAFL club Perth, to build its headquarters that carries the sponsorship name of “Mineral Resources Park”. The Adelaide parklands guardians certainly will not tolerate commercial signage on Leroy Oval at North Adelaide.
Among one of the 30 plans on Adelaide’s whiteboard was to gain strong visibility in the CBD by placing the Crows offices - for administration, membership and corporate services - in the old Bank of New South Wales building at 2 King William street. The training facilities could have remained at West Lakes or moved to a new reserve, such as Thebarton Oval.
But there was concern for the physical disconnect between the football and administration.
Monday night promises another fascinating chapter to add to the sagas created in floodlighting Football Park and redeveloping Adelaide Oval. The book recording these moments is indeed “biblical”.