Adelaide FC is being left behind in the AFL arms race but a parklands move is not the answer

Inaugural Crows coach Graham Cornes says Adelaide FC’s West Lakes home is outdated and the club needs a new headquarters — but the Adelaide parklands is the wrong place.

• Council (almost) open to Crows parklands move
• Crows consider Footy Park to Parklands move

The Crows must find a new spiritual home — but surely not in our precious parklands.

Every successful AFL team needs a spiritual home.

There was a time when the Crows owned Football Park — spiritually. No one gave it to them; they just acquired it.

From the moment of that first game against Hawthorn, the ground was special to them. However it didn’t come easily.

The club had to grow — from nothing really. It had to overcome the resistance to Football Park, which no one had loved way back in 1974.

Back then we knew why we had to move but we still loved Adelaide Oval. But from small things big things grow and gradually the Crows, and what they had at West Lakes, became the envy of the other AFL clubs.

Crows coach Don Pyke at the Adelaide Football Club Headquarters at West Lakes. Photo: Sarah Reed

Its facility on the eastern side of the oval, so meticulously researched and constructed, was the finest in the competition, as was the playing surface of the ground.

The coaches and the players of the Adelaide Football Club had everything they needed to prepare and recover. It was the Crows’ fortress and didn’t the Port fans hate it — so much so that they stopped going.

AFL football’s move back to Adelaide Oval blindsided the Crows. The club would certainly not have spent tens of millions of dollars on a training, administration and reception centre if it knew it was moving. To mollify the outrage, the Crows were allowed to keep their clubrooms and train on that perfect surface — rent free.

That benevolence from the SANFL, which owned Footy Park, eased the pain and the indignation somewhat but it has slowly sapped the spirit.

It’s depressing driving around West Lakes these days. It may be great place to live but the football spirit has all but evaporated.

Encroaching townhouses and crumbling grandstands are discouraging. There is no feel for footy anymore. Compare new recruits arriving at the mess that is now Football Park to the rookies coming to Alberton to be indoctrinated with the history of that ground. Depressing!

No wonder the Crows are looking for a new home.

There have to be plenty of options for the Crows but not at the expense of Adelaide’s unique parklands.

Brendon Goddard kicks a football in the indoor training room at Essendon’s Tullamarine training facility.

The biggest problem facing an AFL club wanting to relocate is the enormous expanse of land that is required for administration, carparking, gym facilities, pool, training grounds and ideally an extra undercover oval for when winter rages.

Essendon’s high performance, training and administration facility at Tullamarine has all of that. Across the country AFL clubs are opening new facilities.

No longer do the Crows have the most modern, state-of-the-art, high performance centre. However, to start afresh will require an enormous footprint of land. Of course there is room in our Adelaide parklands (and what a magnificent place to have your home) but it is the preserve of all South Australians, not just a privileged few.

The Adelaide Parklands Preservation Association may come across as a group of fuddy-duddy spoilsports, Luddites even, but the roles and voices of its members are vital. Adelaide is one of the prettiest, most unique cities in the world because of our parklands.

It is true that over the decades and centuries there have been many developmental incursions into those parklands but they have been relatively small and have not spoiled the overall impression and ambience of the city.

The grandstand at Adelaide University Oval in the parklands. Picture: AAP/ Keryn Stevens

Around the beautiful University playing grounds in particular, there are a few boatsheds and the odd grandstand that have tumbled out of the architectural chaos that is the Adelaide University. Some of the older facilities have been upgraded and modernised but the footprint of those amenities hasn’t really increased.

There’s an archery club that uses the area that, according to Thursday’s report from The Advertiser’s chief reporter Paul Starick, the Crows are eyeing off. Are the needs of that club so insignificant that we simply override them?

To give the Crows what they want, and indeed need, would take too big a chunk out of the parklands which belong to all South Australians.

If the Crows are to move it must be to an area that is already used as a football ground and has room to expand. Reigning premiers, West Coast Eagles are moving to new facilities at Lathlain Park, one of Perth’s traditional old footy grounds.

The Fremantle Dockers have moved to a new elite training and administration centre at Cockburn Central West, which is now one of the biggest sports, leisure, education and community centres in Australia. Both of those new developments have injected vibrancy into the surrounding communities.

Thebarton Oval would be an ideal precinct in which to develop an elite facility for the Adelaide Football Club, but there would be dozens of other suitable areas that don’t gobble up the parklands

However, there is one other gigantic problem in moving the Crows from West Lakes and it’s the reason that no one at the Crows can appear to be keen to move (even though they secretly are). It’s the cost! At the moment they have adequate, albeit inconvenient and outdated facilities, which cost them nothing. Who will pay for any future relocation?

The Crows are the biggest, most significant sporting organisation in the state.

Spiritually they need and deserve to have the best facilities.

However, Adelaide’s Parklands can’t be gifted to them. Much better to find an old footy ground and build the best facilities in Australia. That would revive everyone’s spirit.

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