Spotless Stadium voted best AFL venue for fan experience, beating Gold Coast’s Metricon Stadium

FORGET the MCG, the home of Aussie Rules now lying in the heart of Western Sydney after Spotless Stadium was voted the No.1 AFL venue for fan experience.

Carlton's Bradley Walsh takes the ball from a ruck contest ahead of Greater Western Sydney's Adam Treloar during AFL match GWS Giants v Carlton at Spotless Stadium. Picture. Phil Hillyard

FORGET the MCG, the home of Australian rules now lies in the heart of Western Sydney.

Spotless Stadium has been voted the No.1 AFL venue in the country for fan experience, a major boon for the boutique ground ahead of the Giants’ highly anticipated home opener against Hawthorn on Saturday.

The GWS base might not measure up as one of the game’s coliseums but the people have spoken and as far as the paying football public is concerned, they would much prefer quality over quantity of seats.

Sydney’s bitter stadium wars raged for weeks over what the city was lacking in terms of state-of-the-art sporting infrastructure, but in Spotless there’s a top class facility already up and running that’s earned the tick of approval from the people who matter most.

Big Bash League champions the Sydney Thunder sold out Spotless throughout the summer, continuing to build the ground’s reputation among western suburbs fans, and now the Giants are confident the wave of momentum will continue.

The Giants have been forced to endure some low turnouts in their fledgling years, but knocking off Gold Coast’s Metricon as the No.1 stadium in the country as voted by the fans is a sign the improving club is heading in the right direction off and on the field.

“We got 13,500 last year against Hawthorn which is the biggest non-derby crowd ... and increasingly the voices of our fans are growing louder,” Giants chief David Matthews told News Corp.

“As a young club there will often be a bit of a focus on the quantity in terms of crowd sizes among others but we’re big believers that quality will lead to quantity.

“To get that feedback as the No.1 ranked stadium in the competition for the fans is just a significant feather in our cap.

“There’s not a bad seat in the house and what we’re doing more of now is providing quality entertainment on the field.”

Spotless Stadium plays host to GWS’s home games in western Sydney, Picture: Phil Hillyard

Metricon Stadium won the No.1 fan experience stadium award for multiple years on the trot thanks to exceptional customer service — with experts from Disney even shipped into the Gold Coast to train the stadium’s staff.

There’s been nothing Mickey Mouse about the way Spotless has knocked them off the perch.

Feedback from fans has praised the ground’s security and cleanliness as a safe place to bring kids, its community engagement with kick-to-kick on the field after every match and also the emphasis on match-day entertainment, which they believe gives them a point of difference against other clubs.

Leading band Thirsty Merc will perform live at the Hawthorn clash this week, with Justice Crew scheduled in for later in the season.

“We’ve won our last two games and it’s a huge game this week — so we’re hoping the more and more people who experience our stadium, the more that will come back,” said Matthews.

“Having Hawthorn is the perfect lead-in to the start of our schedule in Sydney.

“It’s helped us too having the Sydney Thunder relocate and start playing their games there because our fan bases would overlap to some extent and certainly the Thunder are showing a lot of people in western Sydney what a great stadium it’s as well.”